


Where Angels Fear to Tread

by Caenea



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Battle of the Bastards does NOT happen, Be aware that this is very dark indeed, Bloodplay, Both Jon and Arya a little bit fucked in the head, Canon divergence from S06, Dark!Arya Stark, Dark!Jon Snow, F/M, Ghost of High Heart specifically, Graphic Violence, POV Alternating, Recovery from spousal abuse, References to book canon, Rough Sex, Supernatural Elements, Universe-specific magical occurences, graphic murder, jonrya, paranormal elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-07-13 12:08:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 28
Words: 65,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16017620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caenea/pseuds/Caenea
Summary: Having her beside him soothes him somehow. He came back - strange, he knows it deep down. He finds he does not tire, he's slept for less than two hours each night since the Red Priestess brought him back, and yet he feels no weariness, no exhaustion. He finds he does not hunger more than once every other day, he finds he does not thirst. If it wasn't for the fact that he could put his hand to his chest and feel his beating heart, he'd believe himself dead still. He glances at her, knows he's going to have to explain. Mind you -"You said you'd killed a man," he says, breaking the silence. Her lips curve in a cold, mirthless smile."I've killed a lot of men," she answers. "I imagine you have too.""Strictly speaking, they weren't all men.""No, me neither," she says.





	1. Jon I

**Author's Note:**

> Just... look, I don't even know. I've been receiving treatment for depression. The doctor put me on Cipramil and it's ... well, this is the result. This plot. Please give honest feedback, whilst keeping it constructive if you can. 
> 
> I've also started work on The Queen of Winter, and it's my hope that that will begin to be released at the end of October! 
> 
> Thanks in advance to all. Please let me know if I should add anything to the tags.

      "Lord Commander!" He does not answer to that now, death came and claimed him. He owes nothing to the Watch now.

      "I'm not -"

      "There's a girl at the gates," Dolorous Edd says, his face furrowed in confusion. "She says she's your sister."

  
Jon's new-made heart skips several beats. Sansa? It couldn't be. He'd heard no word of her after he'd heard she'd fled King's Landing. But curiosity killed the cat - and the betrayers who had once lured him to his death still swing in the breeze in the courtyard - so he follows Edd outside, onto the little viewing platform. He looks around the courtyard, he sees no flash of red hair. He turns to Edd.

      "Is this another trick?" he asks tightly. "Is there another sign saying traitor, and five more men to kill me?"

      "No, Lord Commander, she was here, I told her to wait -" Sansa wouldn't just wander off, not in a courtyard full of Wildlings and Crows and in an unfamiliar castle. Jon frowns even as Edd leans over the railing.

      "Ah, Lord Commander, she is there -" He's pointing at a boy with his back to them for Gods' sake, a boy with shoulder-length brown hair that's smooth and shining and pulled back into a tie that twinges familiarity right down in Jon's soul. A boy in quilted tunic, leather jerkin, breeches made of thick doeskin, boots made of leather. No cloak at all, despite the cold. The boy carries a strange, skinny sword. Some long-buried memory flares alive in his resurrected brain. _Sansa can keep her sewing needles. I've got a needle of my own..._

  
But she is dead, that little girl with tangled hair and a dirty face, dead and gone. Edd is leaning over the parapet, calling out before Jon can stop him.

      "You, girl -" She turns - and it is a girl, he can see the curve of her even through the layers, and her face, dear Gods, her face. Age and time have refined the pointed chin and long cheekbones into beauty instead of awkwardness, something unnameable has replaced innocence with ice - but it is her. Unmistakably, undeniably, _impossibly_ \- it is her. She meets Jon's eyes with grey Stark eyes and his feet are moving without command.

  
She is running. She crosses the courtyard on feet so light she seems to be flying, then at the last moment, she jumps. His arms are outstretched to her and he catches her, her slim body held fast against his own. Her arms are tight around his neck - she's still so small - and his grip's so tight he can feel the strength of her. Over her shoulder, half-blinded by her hair, he can see Tormund gawping at them both. He sets her on her feet, frames her face in his hands. Her pale skin is like milk, creamy, fresh, unmarked by scars, unlike his own. He has a thousand questions for her, where she's been, why she's dressed like this, why she looks so hard and fierce, what she's doing here - and all of them fly away as she breathes his name.

      "Jon." They stand there, her forehead pressed against his - she's grown enough that it's not hugely uncomfortable for him, although she's still tiny - and sharing the air between them in almost panted breaths.

      "You're alive," he says, stupidly.

      "Starks are hard to kill," she answers bluntly. "Making you a Stark, from what I heard."

  
Oh, there will be time for questions - but their moment is interrupted by her belly rumbling loudly. They both find smiles.

      "You're hungry," he says.

      "Fucking ravenous," she answers, as they draw a little apart from each other.

      "Come on," he says, taking her hand because it feels right. "Let's get you fed."

  
She demolishes half a bowl of stew before she looks up.

      "This is good," she remarks, and half the men in earshot turn to look at her incredulously.

"What is it?"

      "A horse," Jon says. "That dropped down of exhaustion." She laughs, the high female tone drawing everyone's attention. It's such a foreign sound at Castle Black. The Gods know that Red Priestess doesn't laugh.

      "Explains why it's stringy." There's no turning up her nose, she destroys the rest of her bowl before she speaks again. "Best damn dinner I've had in fucking months," she says, grinning at him. One of her back teeth is missing, he can see the dark gap of it.

      "Ale?" he asks, sliding a tankard to her. She grabs it, drains it, wipes her mouth on her sleeve. He raises his eyebrows at her.

      "Can I have another?" she asks. Tormund leans over to pour it, speaks himself.

      "I like you," he remarks. "No idea who you are, mind." Arya grins at him.

      "Thanks," she says. "I'm Arya Stark. I'm his sister."

      " _This_ is your sister, Crow? Fuck me."

      "I'll skip that, if it's all the same to you," Arya shoots back, her grin never wavering. "Prefer my men wearing significantly less." Tormund hoots, Jon stares.

      "Oh I really like this one," he says grinning. "Can we keep her?"

      "No you bloody can't," Jon snaps, recovering himself. He feels strangely possessive of her, he feels the urge still to protect her. Arya has snapped her eyes back to his.

      "You don't need to fight my battles," she says. "I can fight for myself. I know what to do with this now," she continues, curling her fingers around Needle's hilt. "And I have fought to keep it, and killed to get it back from a man who took it from me." This is not the place to discuss this, with Tormund goggling at Arya and half the men in the crowded hall pretending not to eavesdrop. He gestures.

      "Will you come with me?" he asks. She nods.

      "If you'll go to the top of the Wall," she answers, rising to her feet. "I want to see it."

  
He takes her up, after she declines a cloak from Edd and insists that she'll be fine, although Jon takes it and carries it over his arm. He fully expects her to get instantly cold, and while she grins when she sees him with it, she doesn't argue. The ride in the lift is silent, but there's no discomfort to it. She taps her fingers on the wood of the cage as it rattles upwards. There's a kind of restrained and restless energy to her, she's never still. She is seventeen, Jon realises, counting up hastily in his head. Seventeen and her eyes are so, so much older. Her energy is older. And having her beside him soothes him somehow. He came back - strange, he knows it deep down. He finds he does not tire, he's slept for less than two hours each night since the Red Priestess brought him back, and yet he feels no weariness, no exhaustion. He finds he does not hunger more than once every other day, he finds he does not thirst. If it wasn't for the fact that he could put his hand to his chest and feel his beating heart, he'd believe himself dead still. He glances at her, knows he's going to have to explain. Mind you –

      "You said you'd killed a man," he says, breaking the silence. Her lips curve in a cold, mirthless smile.

      "I've killed a lot of men," she answers. "I imagine you have too."

      "Strictly speaking, they weren't all men."

      "No, me neither," she says.

  
They don't speak again until she's gazing out over the lands Beyond the Wall, her lips set in a hard line as she stares.

      "You've been out there, haven't you? With that Wildling."

      "Him, and others."

      "It's beautiful," she murmurs. "But then I suppose most dangerous things are."

      "That's very true," he says. Then it just bursts out of him, he can't stop it."Arya, where have you been? I haven't heard a damn thing about you in years, since they beheaded father -"

      "It's a bloody long story, Jon. I don't know if I'm ready to tell it yet." He feels a flash of hurt, and suddenly her hand is in his. He stares between their clasped hands and her face. She doesn't feel cold, he realises, not even a bit. She's the warmest thing he's felt in his second life. "It's not that I don't trust you," she says, and how did she know he was thinking that? - "Please believe me when I say that. I just - I'm so very, very tired. Can I sleep? Then tomorrow, Jon - we'll tell each other everything tomorrow?" He nods.

      "Can I hold you now?" he asks. She nods, he opens his arms and she fits into him like she was designed to fit there, like someone had taken his measure and built her out of alabaster to fit against him perfectly. Her arms slide around his waist under his cloak, he buries his nose in her hair.

  
On arrival in his rooms, there's another reunion. Ghost sees her, bounds to her as if he's still a puppy. She drops to one knee before him, throws her arms around his neck.

      "Ghost, Ghost, my beautiful boy," she murmurs. "I'm sorry I don't have your sister with me. Oh, I'm so glad to see you!" He hasn't asked about Nymeria, but from her words - it doesn't sound like the wolf is dead. She looks up at him with her grey eyes stormy, deep icy pools he might be able to drown in if he looks too long. "He remembers me," she whispers. His heart jolts.

      "He never forgot." He doesn't explain that sometimes, he dreams himself as Ghost, howling long and loud for his lost sister.

  
He gives her his bed, turns away as she strips to undershirt and smallclothes, turns back as she's climbing in to get a glimpse of pale thigh as she disappears under the furs. She frowns at him.

      "Won't you sleep too?" she asks. "It's a big enough bed, Jon." He doesn't want to explain yet, that he was brought back to life and now cannot sleep. He figures he can climb in and get up once she's asleep, so he sheds his own clothes, changing them for a nightshirt and soft doe-skin leggings. She doesn't look, but as soon as he's in beside her she creeps up close. He lets her put her head on his shoulder, loops his arm around her thin shoulders. "Is this OK?" she asks him. She's so warm in his arms.

      "Yes," he says. "It's fine."

  
That night he sleeps until dawn, wrapped in her scent, her warmth, cloaked in her soft, even breaths and her gentle movements. He wakes still holding her and presses a sleepy kiss to her hair as he realises she is not a dream, realises she has indeed somehow come back to him. It wakes her, she stirs in his arms.

      "I haven't slept that well in years," she murmurs.

      "No," he agrees. "Neither have I." Her fingers flex suddenly, taking a handful of his shirt.

      "Gods, Jon, I never want to be away from you again," she blurts out. He pulls her so close that every inch of her is pressed to his side.

      "Never," he promises. "It's taken years to get you back. I'm never letting you out of my sight again."

  
They made a lover's vow, he realises later as she demolishes leftover stew and hard black bread for her breakfast, eating like someone who has been starving for years. Halfway through the meal comes a visitor and Arya looks up curiously as Melisandre comes in. Then curiosity is replaced by murderous rage and before Jon can react, his sister has the Priestess pressed against the wall, a dagger at the woman's throat and in a voice Jon finds both beautiful and terrifying in equal measures, she speaks.

      "Tell me why I shouldn't kill you, you murdering cunt."


	2. Arya I

      "Blood child," Melisandre gasps as Arya holds the bitch by her throat and imagines slitting it. At the name, Arya's fingers flex on the dagger and her throat. _I see you, wolf child, blood child. I thought it was the Lord who smelt of death... you are cruel to come to my hill... begone, dark heart..._

  
The Ghost of High Heart had called her that. Nobody had been there when she had and Arya had never told a soul what the hag had said to her. But here was that witch who had stolen Gendry, using that name, and Arya could not forget what she had said _. I see a darkness in you_. Oh, she'd show the cunt darkness. She was not the child she had been.

      "Yes, blood child," Arya sneers. "I've killed so many people, you bitch. Tell me why I shouldn't add to the number."

      "I did not kill him." Arya blinks, the unexpected claim catching her by surprise. Jon puts a hand on her shoulder.

      "Arya, stop. Please?"

      "No. You have been on my list a very, very long time," she tells Melisandre, tightening her grip on the woman's throat. "I want to see if you bleed like the rest of us."

      "Ask Ser Davos," Melisandre rasps. "He took the boy from the dungeons of Dragonstone, he put him in a boat -" Arya gives a laugh that sounds cruel even to her own ears.

      "Ah, so when you say you didn't kill him, you mean you just didn't get a _chance_."

      "Arya!" Jon has wrapped strong arms around her chest, has physically dragged her off Melisandre, who slumps, clutching at her throat. "Stop this, sister," he murmurs in her ear, intimate, close. "She - saved my life." She damn near screams to hear that but Jon hasn't finished. His hand wraps around her own, the hand holding the dagger. "Give me the blade, sweet sister, please. We have much to discuss." She thinks that if it was anyone else, she'd refuse. Her fingers loosen under his, he takes away the blade.

      "You can live," she spits as Melisandre. "For now. But I swear to the Gods that if I hear one damn thing against you, or if you are lying to me about him, I will slit your throat and wash myself in your blood."

  
Jon sends for the man Melisandre called Ser Davos, and Arya surveys him critically when he comes into the Lord Commander's rooms. He is weather-beaten, greying, thick salt and pepper beard - and there is honesty in his face.

      "Davos," Jon says, "this is my sister, Lady -"

      "Not Lady," she interrupts him. "I am no Lady. My name is Arya Stark."

      "I'm Davos Seaworth," the man says, extending his hand. The tips of his fingers are missing when she shakes it. "I served Stannis Baratheon before he died." Arya raises an eyebrow.

      "I could not care any less about the Kings you chose to serve," she says. "Unless you were Joffrey's right hand man, I don't care." Davos offers her a smile.

      "I was not."

      "Then I need to ask you something," she said, ignoring Jon's warning hand on her shoulder. "Did you know a boy named Gendry?" Davos starts, his eyes widening. He glances to Melisandre. "She tells me you released him from the Dragonstone cells, set him free after she fucking brought him, like he was a bit of meat that could be _brought_ \- and that you let him go. Did you?" Davos looks to Jon, who must have nodded or given some sign because he faces her square.

      "Yes, I did." She closes her eyes for a moment, breathes out, then looks past Davos to Melisandre.

      "You live then," she snaps. "For now, at least." She gave herself a shake, the room suddenly stifling. "I'm going outside," she says curtly.

  
She doesn't wait for a response. She finds herself a line of practise dummies, and draws Needle. This is what she needs.

  
The Waif had been a cunt, but she had taught her how to fight well, fight hard, fight long past exhaustion. She lost sense of the Castle around her, did not notice that a crowd was forming. She stopped only briefly to strip off her jerkin and tunic, so she could fight in shirtsleeves and breeches, kept dancing, weaving. When a Watchman challenged her, she didn't notice it was because she'd drawn a crowd. She beat him so easily it was almost pathetic, then accepted more challengers as they came. By the time Tormund steps up, she's laughing with the exhilaration.

      "Sure you can take me, Wildling?" she asks, twirling Needle in a vicious circle. He grins at her.

      "Aye girl, I reckon so."

  
She's never encountered a fighting style like it. It lacks the discipline of Westerosi sword-fights, it’s quicker, faster, far less predictable. And Tormund wields an axe, not a sword, a vicious double-headed thing that swings hard and heavy - and wide. And for such a big man, in so many furs, Tormund is surprisingly light on his feet. She has to duck and weave more than she expected, almost dancing around him as she looks for weaknesses. The wide sweep of the axe disadvantages them both - he has to leave himself open but she has to be mindful of the arc to duck through it. It lasts so long she begins to fear he'll win simply through endurance, or that she'll be blinded by her own sweat. But he is growing careless too, confident she can't get close enough - so she lets him almost herd her backwards, until she comes up near a barrel. She jumps from ground to barrel, jumps the axe swing as she leaps forward, throwing her full weight onto his chest. He does not fall, rather catches her around the thighs with his free arm - and his blue eyes go wide as she presses Needle to his throat lightly.

      "Dead," she says, grinning at him from where she’s all but wrapped around him. He lowers her to the ground.

      "I don't know where the fuck they taught you to do that, girl, but fuck me," he answers, smiling. His light attitude takes her by surprise, she expects him to go off nursing wounded pride like the Watchmen did, expects his fellows to call out disparaging remarks. It's only as she looks around that she realises how crowded the yard has become. Wildlings and Crows alike are staring at her, the Crows with disbelief, the Wildlings with a kind of amused respect.

      "Not bothered being beaten by a woman then?" she asks him.

      "That's for Southern cunts," he answers. "To my people, women are fighters as much as men. Spearwives are a wonderful thing." She's opening her mouth to speak again when a voice calls her name. She looks up to see Jon staring at her from the balcony he'd stood on when she'd arrived yesterday. His mouth is open, and there's some dark look on his face that she cannot name. Nor can she name the stir she feels as he stares at her with such heat. She breaks the gaze to look at Tormund.

      "Will you teach me how to use an axe?" she asks.

      "Girl, I'd be honoured." She smiles at him, picks up her discarded quilted tunic coat and jerkin. She crosses the silent courtyard to climb the stairs, stands in front of Jon - and Davos, she notices. She looks into her brother's face, that dark, heated, nameless thing still there, his eyes almost flat black - and smiles at him.

      "I suppose we should talk then," she offers lightly. "Where shall we go?" I want to be alone with you when you hear this."

  
He takes her back to his chambers, and she tosses coat and jerkin onto the bed they had shared before she sits down beside the fire. He drags up the other chair he has, sits so close their knees brush together. Leaning forward into each other, sharing the air between their heads, she begins, slowly, to talk.

  
She tells him everything, she spares no detail. She tells him of living on the streets of Fleabottom after the guards came for her and Syrio Forel died so she could run. She tells him of standing in the crowd as they cut off their father's head, listening to Sansa screaming for mercy, and the crowd screaming for his blood. She tells him of the journey with Yoren and the others, of the fighting, of making her funny little list of the people she intends to kill. She speaks of Harrenhal and the Mountain, of Jaqen and the Brotherhood and the Hound. She tells him of the Red Wedding, of what she had seen them do to Robb. It's at that point that he reaches out to her, dragging her from her chair and into his lap, to hold her close, very close, pressed into him from chest to groin where she straddles his thighs.

  
She tells him of leaving the Hound to die. She tells him of Braavos, of the House of Black and White, of how she trained to be a Faceless Man. She tells him of murdering Meryn Trant and being blinded for it. She tells him of how she left rather than murder an innocent woman - and how the Waif came to kill her for it.

      "She came to my room at the House, blade in hand. Caught me by surprise, stabbed me in the belly because the bitch wanted me to suffer," she breathes into Jon's ear. His hands flex tight on her hips. "But she didn't know I had kept my Needle. I stabbed her through her miserable fucking heart, Jon. And I took her face and left it for Jaqen to find. He painted my shirt with her blood and then he stripped me of it. He dressed my wounds. He fucked me under the eyes of the Many-Faced God and in the Hall of Faces and I let him. Gods, I've never felt so free. Then I left him, left the House and came home. Took a little detour on the way up here, stopped off at the Twins and I made Frey pay for what he allowed to be done under his roof, I killed him and all of his sons and bannermen." Jon's almost panting under her, some dark, brutal energy is pulsing between them. She draws back a little because she wants, needs to see his face. It's white, bone white, but his eyes are black. She swears she can see a flame dancing where his pupil should be. "Then I came home," she finishes with a whisper. "I came to you."

      "Yes," and his voice is almost a groan and suddenly she remembers that this is her brother she's straddling the lap of, her brother Jon. And yet - she feels utterly, utterly right being so close to him. "You came home to me. Where you _belong_." His voice is darker than his eyes, possessive, commanding, brutal. She opens her lips to speak but cannot do it, a knock sounds at the door.

      "Lord Commander?"

      "I am not Lord Commander," Jon bellows, frustration creeping into his tones. He stands up, she slides back into her own chair and grips the arms of it. He strides to the door, wrenches it open. "I didn't give you that cloak for fun, Edd. I am not a part of the Night's Watch, not any more. I'm waiting here only until my sister has rested from her long road home," he continues, looking back at her. "And until we decide what we're doing next."

      "But Jon - a raven, from King's Landing - Cersei Lannister demands you declare allegiance to her now Stannis Baratheon is dead, or she'll send no more troops -"

      "Cersei Lannister can send a fucking army after me for all I care," Jon growls. "I never declared allegiance to Stannis and anyway, the Night's Watch is impartial. And she isn't exactly sending you men _now_ , so she can hardly deprive you of what she isn't giving you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I am talking with my sister. We still have much to say to each other." He slams the door in Edd's face and comes back to her. He doesn't say anything, so she speaks.

      "Do you hate me?" she asks. His eyes widened - instead of sitting he drops to his knees before her and looks up at her, his eyes less black, but no less fathomless.

      "Never. You've carved your path, and if it has been paved in blood - well, so has mine." He stays on his knees to tell her his own story, without her needing to ask for it. His head rests in her lap, warm on her thigh as she runs her fingers through his hair occasionally. They wear their hair in the same style, she realises, half pulled back to keep it off their faces - like their father wore his own hair. They are children of the North, she realises, her and Jon are so similar now. Even as he tells his story to her, of training, making enemies, of his time with the Wildlings, his love affair with a Wildling girl called Ygritte, of betraying them to return to his brothers, of battles and nearly dying, of Ygritte dying in his arms, of being elected Lord Commander of the Watch - at every damn stage, she can draw connections between his story and her own. But when he tells of Hardhome and the Others, all Old Nan's stories come to horrifying life, she slides her hand to the nape of his neck and grips him tight.

      "The army of the dead," he whispers, "and they all stood up at once." But his story isn't finished yet, he tells her of allowing the Wildlings to cross the Wall - and how his own men killed him for it. "There was a cross in the snow, on it was written traitor. And they stabbed me, five of them - so I died out there in the snow, my blood staining it. It was so dark, Arya, there was nothing in the darkness. I don't- I was standing in a void of nothing, just the darkness. And I was alone. Completely, utterly alone. I've never been so frightened. Then the next thing - I was waking up, naked and in this Castle. Melisandre brought me back. She resurrected me, brought me out of the darkness. Except -"

      "Except you still feel like you're in it," Arya whispers to him. He moves, looks up at her.

      "Yes," he says, "how did you know?"

      "I've seen a man brought back from death by a Red Priest. Thoros of Myr and Beric Dondarrion. I saw it."

      "Yes, you did, didn't you." His head goes back to her thigh, his hand comes up to the other and he strokes a pattern onto it with his thumb. "I knew you'd understand," he breathes.

      "I always understood you. You were the only one who didn't laugh at me for wanting to be a swordsman."

      "You are now. But I don't think I'm still the same -"

      "Neither am I," she admits. "I'm not afraid of you, Jon," she murmurs, because some deep instinct told her he needed to hear that.

      "And if you should be? Because I - I think I came back wrong, Arya. I can't- I can't think, sometimes I find myself - craving. Blood, death, to _taste_ it -"

      "You do not frighten me," she repeats. "I have spent so long looking for you. I'm staying with you now, no matter what you crave or need or want. And if you crave death, or blood, or whatever - well, I know where I can get it for you." She's never told anyone this, but she says it to Jon now. "If you want it, then there are still names on my list. I still haven't finished it. We could finish it together. I still require blood too, Jon, because I still have debts to collect on. Let's do it together. You're done here, right?"

      "Yes. My vow was until my death. My death has come and gone, Arya. And besides," he continues, his smile growing wolfish in the light of the fire, "they're too afraid of me to stop me." She answers his smile with one of her own and looks at him.

      "Then I know where we can start, dear brother." He reaches up, tugs her down to the floor, pulling her under him. He lies over her, his weight reassuring, the boiled leather of his jerkin rough against the thin linen shirt.

      "You are prepared to stand beside me. Prepared to give me death to taste once more -"

      "No," she interrupts. "I'm going to give us death to taste _together_."


	3. Jon II

He doesn't like the way Melisandre looks between him and Arya when they're together. He doesn't like the knowing fear on the priestesses face when she watches Arya fight, when she watches Jon watch Arya fight.

  
The Watchmen don't trust Arya, he can see it, this strange Westerosi girl who dresses in boy's clothes and can take any of them in a fight and still call out for more. Tormund is the only one who can beat her, but it happened only once. He'd put her on her back, straddled her chest to point his axe between her eyes - and a possessive, roaring monster had awoken in his chest as he saw how Arya laughed about it, how she arched slightly beneath the Wildling. Mine, a voice growled in his head.

  
But for half the day, each day, as her first week back beside him becomes the second week, she is his. His, because they are setting their sights on Winterfell.

      "I heard things on the road," she'd said, when she'd proposed it as an option. "He has Sansa, Ramsey Bolton has married her and he's a godsdamned fucking monster, Jon. We are going to take back our home and free our sister - and we will taste Bolton blood for what they have done."

  
Davos advises gathering an army to take Winterfell. Arya says they do not need an army.

      "Jon and I will take Winterfell. I can get in and out unnoticed. But to do it, we need to leave Castle Black and start camping on the roads."

      "Forgive me, my Lady - er, Arya. But while people may not know your face any more, people know Jon's -" Davos says tentatively as she proposes this plan. Arya's smile is dark and threatening.

      "But we won't be travelling as ourselves, Ser Davos."

  
The faces intrigue him, frighten him and seduce him in equal measures. Davos rears back when she brings them out.

      "This is some dark magic -" he begins, biting his lip as he looks between Jon and Arya, focussing on Arya herself.

      "The very darkest magic," Arya murmurs, her voice as low and seductive as a lover's whispered words of passion. "To change a face, all at will and whenever I please. And all I need is a body to harvest them. I can become anyone I wished, I could murder Cersei Lannister and take her face and nobody would know it wasn't her. I would speak in her voice, move in her skin, in her clothes. I would know what it was to fuck my own brother and rule a Kingdom, and all I would need to find out what all that feels like is her face. I could take the face of that Red Priestess Stannis put all his faith in and feel her magic thrum through my own veins. I could take your face, Ser Davos, and become you - all your memories, all your knowledge, all of it would be mine - and all I would need to find it all out would be your face." Jon could swear the room darkens as she speaks, as she intones deep, dark magic, as she picks up a face from the pile on the table and smiles a demon's smile at the pallor that takes Davos' own, living face. "Shall I show you how I do it?" Jon answers for them both, his hand gripping the arm of the chair he sits in, so tight that he imagines his knuckles must be white under the leather of his gloves. Heat and passion are warring in his veins as he listens to her describe what she can do, and he desperately wants to see it.

      "Show me," he orders, and it is an order, the command darkening his voice until his tones match hers. Davos is looking between them, obviously sensing the shift in the energy of the room and fearing it, Jon can see it all on his face. But he has eyes only for Arya, as she smiles that demonic smile again and raises the face to her own.

  
Jon swears he feels the air snap and sizzle with some magic as she presses against her own face. When her hands come down, she isn't Arya any more, a serving girl with wide lips and a round face has taken her place, hair down to her waist and taller too. He sits forward, his heart pounding.

      "Lord Commander?" the girl asks, and it isn't Arya's voice. He recoils because there was a part of him that thought this would make it easier to look at her with the strange, sin-washed feelings he has for her but it does not, it just feels wrong to see her as someone else, speaking as someone else. He wants Arya in front of him, not this witches creation. She reaches a hand to her face, to her neck, lifts off the face like it's nothing more than a veil - and Arya is back there, smiling triumphantly.

      "Nobody will know us," she says triumphantly. "Not a soul." Davos' eyes are wide, his breath comes in ragged gasps as he backs to the door shaking his head.

      "This is witchcraft," he declares. Arya snaps her head to him, her face darkening with anger as Jon's leather gloves creak under the strain of his fists trying to curl tighter around the arms of his chair.

      "This is who I am, this is what was made of me whilst I fought to stay alive," Arya snaps. "This is why Walder Frey is dead and the Frey name has been erased from the world. If you cannot bear it, then find yourself someone else to serve, Ser Davos. Because Jon understands, don't you Jon?" She turns to him, darkness cloaking her. "You see this part of me and love me anyway, don't you Jon?" Jon nods, his head jerking.

      "You're dismissed, Davos," he says darkly. "Think about whether or not you can do this - because when my sister and I take back the North, I would prefer it if you were by my side as my ally, instead of behind me as my enemy." Davos leaves and Jon permits himself to release a hand from the grip on the chair and holds it out to Arya. "Come to me, sweet sister," he instructs, and she does, dropping to her knees in front of him so he can run the backs of his fingers over her cheeks.

      "We would be anonymous," she murmurs, so obviously seeking to convince him. "We wouldn't be Jon and Arya. We'd be no one, no one and nothing, travelling together. Nobody would know it was us, Jon. And we could get into Winterfell as servants, and slit Ramsey's throat to wash away his sins in blood."

      "No," he says. "We'll travel by night, in our own faces. I don't want to look at you and see some stranger. I want to look at you and see you. You can use your clever faces when we need to get inside - but I want it to be our faces that Ramsey Bolton sees when he dies." Arya grabs his hand, presses his palm into her cheek as she looks up at him from between his legs like she's his lover.

      "Do you want him to see which monsters came for him?" she croons. "The assassin and the White Wolf - we have a good ring to our names, Jon."

      "The Wild Wolf," he corrects her. "You are the Wild Wolf, not just the assassin. I want Ramsey Bolton to know the wolves came for him." He slides his hand to the hair that flows loose over her neck, gathers it into his fist to pull it hard. She tips her head back and bares her throat to him, her lips curving in a smile. "I want him to know that is the wolves killing him, Arya. I want to make him scream. I want to see you carve him up while he begs you for mercy, whilst I watch your face as you paint it with his blood. I want you to see me take the life from him, while I stain my skin scarlet with his blood. Do you want that too, sweetest sister?"

      "Yes," she growls. "I want that."

  
They're as wrong as each other, both of them carrying darkness in their souls and nursing dark and blackened hearts inside their chests, he muses later as he stands alone atop the wall and stares out over the lands beyond it. She has slipped off as she does every day, not telling him where she's going and he does not ask. It gives him time at least to think. Part of himself, perhaps the thinnest of slivers that seems to be all that remains of his humanity, tries to warn him that everything he feels is wrong. The rest of him wants to consume her in every possible way. It is easy to blame Melisandre and her witchcraft - he came back from the dead wrong, broken somehow, to be thinking of his sister like this –

      "Lord Commander." Her accents are as distinctive as her dress, and he turns to finds himself face to face with Melisandre herself.

      "You should have left me as a dead man," he says, turning back to the view. "I think you may have resurrected a monster, not a man."

      "If we are to survive this winter, then a monster is what we need," she answers. He laughs hollowly. "She is the missing piece. I have seen the darkness that lives inside of her, she is a killer, a wicked witch, a monster."

      "She is not a monster!"

      "You both are, Jon Snow. Do you think I do not see anything in the two of you? I see more than you realise, Lord Commander. You need her darkness to match your own, just as she needs yours. The two of you - you will rule, Jon Snow, but to get there you need her by your side. I see it all in the flames, R'hollor shows it to me - the Wolves of the Long Night." He snorts.

      "I will not be another Stannis to you," he growls. "I will not follow you blindly, hanging off your every damn supposed vision. I will not rip apart the world on your say-so."

      "No," she says, and her agreement surprises him. "You are the Prince who was Promised, Jon Snow. And she was born to stand beside you. You do not need me for that. You just need to know that it is your fate. Your life is bound to hers, as hers is bound to yours. Take back the North - just make certain she is always beside you. You go nowhere without her." He nods, because he has determined that himself.

      "She will stay by my side - but not because of some prophecy, or fate. She will be with me because it's where she belongs." Melisandre nods, as if he has confirmed something to her.

      "She does. And do not fear to claim her -"

      "She is my sister," Jon spits, anger rising in his heart at the insinuation. "I do not need to claim her more than our blood claims each other."

      "You are far more than that, Jon Snow." He steps away from her, sickened, intrigued, repulsed.

      "I am going to my sister," he says, emphasizing the sister for himself, if not for Melisandre. The Red Priestess shrugs, turns to look out over the frozen North.

      "As you will, Lord Commander."

      "I am not Lord Commander," he tosses back as he walks away. "My obligations to anyone but her ended the day my own men murdered me."

  
He cannot find her at first, she isn't at the practise dummies, or fighting anyone. She is not in the kitchens, the Hall, the Maester's rooms, their rooms, as he has come to think of his once lonely bedchamber. He runs Tormund to earth eventually, asks if he's seen her.

      "Aye. Said she was going to wash. I offered to help, but she said she'd have to cut my cock off first." Tormund sighs almost happily. "She's a fiery woman, your sister." Jon doesn't trust himself to answer, just wheels around to head to the bathhouse Castle Black boasts as it's only reasonably up-to-date facility. Tormund's chuckles follow him for longer than they should and the dark voice in his head repeats mine, mine, mine.

  
The door is not locked, because the day after she had arrived, a Watchman had walked in on her bathing and lost a finger to Needle when he'd stopped to watch. Jon had been a mixture of amused and furious when she'd told him the story.

  
He slips into the bathhouse, sees her at once. She's up to her neck in the water of the furthest bath, her head tipped back and her eyes closed. He's barely got one foot in the room when she speaks.

      "The only reason you aren't dead is because I know it's you," she says lazily. He hears her clearly, despite her low tones. "Come in, Jon," she continues. "And shut the damn door." He obeys her, his boots ringing loud on the stone floor as he crosses the room to her. She opens her eyes as he draws up beside her, her eyes wide in the dim light. He is determined to look only at her face, but in the periphery of his vision, he sees her pale shoulders crest above the water as she moves a little. "I always feel so wasteful, filling this bath just for me. D'you want to join me?" His heart skips, the monsters in his chest roaring delight so loud he's afraid she'll hear.

      "We'd be naked," he blurts.

      "Unless you've started taking baths fully clothed, yes. You're my brother Jon, we swam naked in the Godswood pools all the time." _Yes_ , he thinks, even as his hands start stripping his layers off. _But we were children then, and I was not a monster from beyond the grave._ He's down to his undershirt when he stops.

      "My scars," he begins, hesitating. She's not seen them yet, he fears they will frighten or repulse her. Her eyes bore into his own. He feels like he cannot breathe.

      "Are you, as much as mine are me. I will not be afraid of them, as I am not afraid of you. But if you like, I will close my eyes." He nods, and she slides back into the position she had been in when he first came to her, tipping back her head and closing her eyes. He sheds the last of his clothes and joins her, the ripples he creates washing her throat. She brings her head forward, opens her eyes.

      "There, that's not so bad is it?" she teases, her voice light. "We are naked in the bath together and have managed, thus far, to avoid sinning." He can't help the smile.

      "If we stay on our own sides, I'm sure we can continue to avoid it," he answers, carrying on the joke. It gets a laugh from her at least.

      "Are you going to tell me what's wrong?" she asks, her voice quiet, knowing. "Or shall I pry it out of you?"

      "How did you know?" he asks.

      "Because I can feel it," she murmurs. "I can always feel you."

      "Melisandre says - that we belong together. That we must be by each other's sides." She nods, slowly.

      "I don't need a sorceress to tell me that. I do belong with you - as you belong with me. We always did, even when were children. Not even death and magic can change that."

  
As it always does when they talk of this, her voice has gone dark, liquid, and he finds his own deepening to match it.

      "No, not even death and magic. I told her that we don't need her two-copper visions to know that we belong together."

      "What did she say?"

      "That I should go everywhere with you beside me, that we need to belong together to take back the North. She called us the Wolves of the Long Night." Arya chuckled, low and deep.  
      "I hate that bitch for Gendry's sake - but I approve of that. It has a ring to it. But I don't need her to tell me that you aren't leaving me again. We stay together now. Winterfell - Winterfell is just the start. Whatever we do after we have it back, we do together. Wherever we might go after we take back Winterfell, we go together. Neither of us gets a choice. I came home to you for a reason, Jon. Davos can call me a witch if he likes, the Watchmen can call you a monster if they like - we'll be monsters together if that's the case."

      "You aren't a monster," he tries.

      "You've never seen me kill."

      "How do you do it?" he asks. She moves, quicker than he ever thought possible, she comes to sit so close to him he can feel her naked thigh pressed against his own. Her hands come up to his shoulders as she twists her body towards him. He dares not take his eyes from hers. He knows that if he does, he will see the swells of her breasts above the water, that he will see her naked flesh beneath his hungry gaze.

      "How do I kill, Jon? Do you really want to know how I take my revenge on those who dare to wrong me and mine?" He nods, silently because he dare not speak and make them break the spell between them. "I like to cut their throats, or stab them through a lung. Then I like to hear them drowning in their own blood, Jon. I like to see the fear in their eyes as the Stranger comes to claim them, as I give them to the Gods." He gazes at her in awe, in silent fear of her. She gives him the smile he imagines demons have. "Still think I'm not a monster?" He takes one deep, gasping breath. He takes one of her hands from his shoulders and places it beneath the water, on the ridged, still open scar over his heart. Her hand feels hot upon his skin as she flattens her palm over it and presses lightly.

      "Do you think I am?" he asks.


	4. Arya II

His scar makes a harsh ridge beneath her hand, pressed flat against his chest. She feels more too, the curves of his ribs, the flutter of his pulse throbbing beneath her skin, the cool of his flesh despite the heat of the water.

      "You're cold," she murmurs.

      "I'm always cold now," he answers, turning his head away. She catches it with her free hand, brings him back to face her.

      "Don't turn away from me, Jon."

      "Do you think I am a monster?" he repeats, his voice a rasp now. She shakes her head.

      "No more a monster than me." She leaves her hand on his chest as she makes her next assertion. "But I don't want to stay here any more," she says. "I want to leave, and go to Winterfell, and start our work." He nods.

      "Then we'll go. Whenever you want."

      "Tomorrow," she says. "We'll leave tomorrow night."

  
They get ready the next day, packing their things and taking the loaves of black bread the cook offers them. They can both hunt, and besides which, they'll have Ghost with them. She knows Jon dreams as she does, that sometimes he can be inside his wolf and hunt with Ghost's body as his own - as she can with Nymeria, wherever her wolf is. Even in Braavos, she could dream herself as Nymeria. Whatever connection she has to Jon, as unnameable as it is - she knows these things without him ever needing to say them. The longer they spend together, the stronger it grows. She knows he feels it too. She knows he can read a mere look from her as she can from him. She knows his hand sometimes grips the arm of a chair too tightly for the same reason her own sometimes does the same - so they will not reach out for each other and touch each other. She feels better when he touches her. She feels better when she touches him. A brush of hands, a grip to a shoulder, a touch to her face, to his nape - no matter how brief, how fleeting, how innocent the touch, she craves his skin beneath her own, craves it, needs it. She tries very hard not to think of what even their most innocent touches burn with.

  
She goes up to the top of the Wall that day, to look over the frozen wastes of the North one final time. Secretly, she revels in how people fall back from her or Jon as they walk through a crowd, how suspicious or frightened eyes follow her. It makes her feel powerful, gives her a sense of being invincible. She knows she isn't - the scars the Waif gave her are still red and raised on her belly. But with Jon beside her and with Needle at her hip, she feels untouchable.

  
Melisandre is waiting at the top of the Wall, and without being told, Arya knows the witch is there for her. She looks at her.

      "I have nothing to say to you," she intones flatly, walking past her to get to the view point.

      "Yet there is something I must say to you."

      "Then say it - and go." Melisandre lets the silence grow before she speaks.

      "You and he will be a force to be reckoned with - as long as you remain together. You need each other, little Wolf."

      "You've said all this to Jon already," she answers. "He has said it all to me. We stand together."

      "You are holding back," Melisandre says. "He does not see the you I see."

      "Oh, he does. Did you expect the darkness you see in me to repulse him? Did you expect it to send him running?"

      "No, but he has not seen it all yet, Arya Stark. You have not become that darkness yet." Arya laughs, humourless, dark.

      "Which kill will expose it then, as you see so much? What have you seen in your flames, from your Red God?"

      "It isn't a kill that will expose your soul to him, Arya Stark. It's what you want from him."

      "And what do I want from him?" Arya asks, gripping the rail in front of her as tightly as she could. "Because if you know that, you know a hell of a lot more than I do."

      "You must trust each other. You must stand together. You must see the very darkest parts of the other in order to be who I have seen you become."

      "And if we see those parts of each other and one or both of us cannot bear it?"

      "Is there anything he could show you that would make you turn away?"

  
She would have answered, but a howl cuts across the air between them, a howl Arya knows, down to her very soul. She runs back to the cage. The journey seems to take forever, and when it does land, Jon is waiting for her.

      "I knew it at once," he says, his eyes darkly excited. "So does Ghost." She runs to the gates, through them. At the edge of the small, twisted copse of trees, Ghost is circling, and being circled by, a grey and white she-wolf, her muzzle drawn as she scents him. Arya clings to Jon is sudden, soul-burning fear.

      "What if she doesn't know me?" she whispers to him. "I threw rocks at her to make her leave me, what if she doesn't know me?" His arms go around her, he holds her close, so close she can smell the soap and leather scent his skin carries. She buries her face in his throat as her murmurs into her ear.

      "She will know you - as Ghost knew you, as I knew you. She is looking at you, sister, you must go to her." She drags her face from him to see he is right - Nymeria stands side-by-side with Ghost, staring at her. Arya kneels in the snow, holds out her hand.

      "Nymeria, girl. Come to me, girl. We're going home, girl - we're going to fight, me and Jon and Ghost." Nymeria's muzzle draws into a snarl as she approaches Arya, as Arya wills herself to stay still, to keep her hand outstretched. Her heart is racing, the wolf will be able to scent it, surely she must, surely - Nymeria is there, closer than Arya ever dared let herself hope for. Her heart will break if Nymeria turns away.

  
For such a long, long time, the only sound is the soft moan of the wind, the creak of the gates and her own roaring, rushing blood in her ears. Nobody moves. Jon's presence behind her is solid, real, but he is unmoving too. So are the wolves, both staring at her. The tension sizzling in her belly is forcing a scream up, up, up, into her throat and beyond it, it will escape soon because it must - and Nymeria moves. She leaps forward, her full weight in Arya's chest, laying her on her back in the snow. Nymeria lowers her head, sniffs at Arya's throat and hair and face, backs off her to bury her nose against Arya's stomach - exactly where the Waif's blade went in.

  
As suddenly as Nymeria came, her weight is gone, and Arya lifts her head to see her wolf return to Ghost's side, to sit beside her brother. Jon rounds into her vision, stares down at her as she's lying sprawled on her back in the snow. He leans down to pull her to her feet again, his hands weaving through her hair and sliding over her back to brush the snow of her. Without meaning to, her eyes flutter closed as she leans into his touch, lets him tug just lightly on her hair. When her eyes open again, the darkness is back in his eyes - eyes that are once more blacker than a night sky.

      "Silly sister," he mutters. "I told you she would know you."

      "She doesn't,” Arya corrects, her legs shaking as she leans against Jon. "But she will. Jon - it will be dark soon. I want to leave."

      "Then we shall," he promises, dropping his hand from the nape of her neck to stroke her throat, her jaw, to rub the tip of one finger over her lips. The intimacy of the gesture sends heat washing through her, but even as she sways towards his touch he steps backwards. "Stay with the wolves," he instructs, kissing her forehead. "I'll get our packs."

  
The Night's Watch, probably relieved to see the monsters leave, give them a horse each. Davos comes out to say goodbye, Tormund too, and the man her brother calls Edd.

      "You two will travel faster without me," Davos says. "And you'll get further without me. But if you need me, just send a raven - and I'll bring an army with me."

      "I will, Seaworth," Jon tells him. "And I won't forget your friendship. Edd - try not to burn the place down. And Tormund - thank you. For everything."

      "Aye. You take care of him, little spearwife," Tormund tells her, grinning.

      "I'll do my damn best," she promises.

  
They travel only by night, letting the wolves lead the way and trusting the horses not to get spooked. The first night, they don't speak at all. When dawn begins to break, the wolves find them an abandoned cottage and they sleep together, his arms around her and her body pressed against his. She slides her hands onto the cool flesh of his belly and he exhales a quiet sound of bliss as she does it. Her fingertips touch another scar, this one on his abdomen, another would that lead him to his death. He has so many, many scars. Every single one proves how fearsome he has become, is another piece of her old Jon that she once loved so innocently and so naively that was left behind when Melisandre dragged him out of the void - and brought the void with him.

  
That day while she sleeps beside him, she dreams that she is Nymeria, hunting for dinner. Ghost pads alongside her, but when she turns her head to look at him, his eyes are black instead of red. She knows that those are Jon's eyes, and she allows him to take the lead role on their hunt. She runs freer than she has in years, joy seizing her wolf-heart. She is home, she realises, here wrapped in Jon's arms and hunting with their wolves whilst their bodies slumber. She and Ghost - she and Jon - bring down a pig that is wandering the road with no owners anywhere in sight. It screams and squeals as it dies and Arya tastes the blood just as much as Nymeria does. When she jerks awake in Jon's arms, he is already propped on one elbow, his eyes dark and fathomless as he stares at her - watches her sleeping - she swears blind she tastes the wolf's kill in her own mouth.

      "Can you taste it too?" she whispers, her voice hoarse with sleep.

      "Yes," he answers. "And I have missed it."

      "Oh Gods, Jon - so have I." He lies beside her and drags her close, he holds her closer than even Jaqen did when they were lovers. And if finding him again felt right, then lying chest to chest with him feels like home.

  
While the wolves sleep, curled together by the door of the shack, she and Jon cook enough of the pig for them to eat. The carcass is left for the wolves to eat when they wake, and she and Jon pad out their meal with rough black bread, eating like soldiers together. At nightfall, the wolves woke to rip apart the carcass, devouring entrails and flesh alike.

  
Winterfell is in sight by the end of the fifth night of riding. They don't sleep immediately that night, instead they sit together, sides pressed against one another.

      "What do we do first?" Jon asks, his voice thrumming with dark excitement. "Straight in?"

      "Not as us," she answers. We go in as servants, and we listen. We find where Sansa is and see her if we can. And we listen," she repeats, her fingers tight around Needle's hilt.

      "Why?" Jon asks, his impatience showing. She knows it is because he yearns for blood. She is burning for it too.

      "Because Ramsey Bolton is a monster," she replies. "And I want to know exactly how much we will make him suffer before we grant him anything as merciful as a death." He turns to her in the growing dawn light. His eyes are almost glowing, pinning her in her stare, the violence lurking there sending _something_ thrumming through her veins.

      "Are you going to hurt him, dear sister?" he purrs. "Will you make him suffer terribly, and let me watch you?"

      "Yes," she breathes. "And you can tell me exactly how to do it, Jon. You can tell me where to cut, where to slice. Shall I carve our names into his skin, Jon? We could flay him and everyone would know it was us."

      "No," he says. "We'll hang his body in the courtyard and everyone will see it - with our names carved into him. And if he has hurt our sister - he will pay dearly for every bruise he put on her."


	5. Jon III

Travelling with her is a thousand times harder than having her at Castle Black. At Castle Black, the mere presence of other people helped him control himself, helped him remind himself over and over that she was his sister. Alone on the road, with only Ghost and Nymeria for company, with her curled around him every night – it’s a thousand times harder to keep himself away. So hard that he doesn't try, he seeks her warmth at every opportunity, finds his way back to her body if she rolls over while they sleep. She never balks at sleeping on the ground, never objects. She's always been tough though, even as just a child.

  
In their little camp, she puts on a face and his skin immediately begins to crawl as it had done when she had first showed him this. He hates looking at her and seeing a stranger. She comes to him with a man's face held in her hands and looks up at him through a stranger's eyes.

                "Trust me," she says quietly. He nods.

                "I trust you. Always."

  
He feels a strange burning begin as she brings up the face, attaches it over his own. The burn washes through him and he looks down to find himself taller, older. He doesn't like it, from that first second he hates it - but it must be done, so it will be done. He trusts her. He trusts her more than he trusts himself, and he is prepared to hate this if it means they will begin exacting revenge. She takes the lead now, as they planned during those days and night since she proposed this, she takes the lead and they pass the Bolton guards without more than a cursory inspection of the vegetables Arya brought from a farm. They plan to pretend to be farmers, trying to sell their wares to afford to go South to escape the encroaching winter, and it works like a charm. The guards allow them entry, the cook comes out to the courtyard to inspect their crop. He can barely stop himself from gazing round like a child, everything in his blood sings home, home, home - and he never wants to leave again. Arya bargains the cook to a fair price for the vegetables, hands them all over. He's wondering what next when the cook speaks in a low voice, still turning over winter apples as if checking for blemishes.

                "Take my advice, you'll get out of here," the man mutters. "Get well away from this castle and it's master."

                "Why's that, my man?"

                "He's mad," the cook breathes. "Young couple like you - you want to get well away from here. He likes a pretty girl does the master - though you'd not know it from the way he treats his lady. Hear her screaming at night - her and that pet he keeps." Jon hopes to the Gods his rage does not show on his borrowed face. "He's even starving her now. For trying to run away."

  
Even in her borrowed face, Arya must sense his rage. She nods at the cook.

                "Thank you. I hope your master enjoys the vegetables," she adds, raising her voice. "It's the last of our crops now." The cook nods, worry on his face.

                "Aye. Winter comes, from the look of it. I wish you well in it."

                "And you," she returns. She leads Jon away, back into the outer courtyard - then grabs his arm and yanks him sideways - into the crypts of Winterfell. He is vibrating with rage and horror.

                "We act tonight," he spits. She nods.

                "Tonight," she agrees. "And we kill any guards we see in Bolton colours." Her hands come up, he feels the odd burn again as she lifts away his borrowed face. When she removes her own and once more stands before him as herself, he grabs her at once, drags her close and buries his face into her hair.

  
They linger in the crypts, wait for nightfall. They hear snatches of conversation had in hushed tones at the top of the stairs, but nothing useful, nothing that can be gained or used to help them. Sansa is not mentioned, nor is Ramsey. But as it grows dark, they hear guards talking.

                "He reckoned there were two of them, m'Lord, that's what he said. Big as stags and monstrous teeth."

                "Nonsense," says a cold voice. His eyes find hers in the gloom, he knows that Ramsey Bolton is right there, he needs nobody to tell him it is him. He is about to spring when suddenly Arya is on him, pressing his body back into the wall with her own. She's so close, he can smell her, he dives his hands into her hair to grip it tight to keep her against him so he doesn't lose his mind and blow it all by diving up the stairs now. Her hands find their way beneath his shirt to grip his waist tight. She's breathing hard against him, and it's that more than anything that reassures him that she desperately wants to do the same thing.

                "What if it is them, my Lord? The Stark direwolves?" So Ghost and Nymeria have been spotted. Ramsey laughs coldly.

                "Arya Stark has not been seen since Ned Stark was removed. The bitch is likely dead, even my wife swears to it - and I assure you, gentlemen, I have always ensured my wife tells me the truth - don't you, sweeting?" Both he and Arya freeze as a dull, deadened voice answers.

                "Yes, my Lord." Ramsey gives his cold laugh again then there's a slapping sound. Jon's hands jerk and tighten in Arya's hair. Beneath his shirt, he feels her nails dig into his flesh.

                "Good girl. I think Sansa learnt her lesson about lying to me - _haven't you,_ dearest heart?"

                "Yes, my Lord." The voice sounds tearful now. Arya is almost growling in his ear. Her body is shaking with a rage he can taste.

                "And as for the Snow bastard - he is safe at Castle Black. Tell Bolson to lay off the wine, if he's hallucinating giant wolves. Come, Lady Sansa. You still need to be punished for your rudeness to me earlier." A dry sob echoes down to them, then footsteps walk away. The guards remain, Jon can hear them shuffling their feet.

                "You'd think she'd have learnt by now, to keep her pretty mouth shut and just do as she's bloody told. He was punishing her for hours last night, now she's given him lip again."

                "Aye well, Starks always did have more spirit than sense, didn't they?" Jon puts his mouth to Arya's ear.

                "Can we kill those two?" he breathes. "Please, dear sister. I want it." She nods against him - and turning her head towards the stairs, she gives a piercing, carrying whistle.

                "What the hell was that?"

                "Dunno, came from down there. Come on, best check it out."

  
She grabs one, he grabs the other. His one dies immediately, before he can make even a sound of surprise, Jon's sword burying itself into his guts and slicing. Arya claps a hand over the other's mouth to keep him silent.

                "Be a good man," she croons, forcing the guard to his knees with Needle at his throat. "Answer my questions, and I'll let you live. Scream for help, or refuse me, and I'll feed you your friend's guts before you die." The guard nods frantically, terror in his eyes. He can see why. Arya's face is dark with bloodlust, her sword pressing tight into the man's throat as she forces him to lean his head back to look at her. "Do we have an agreement?" Another frightened nod. His heart is racing, his body responding to her darkness as he feels himself harden. "Good boy," she croons, like she's speaking to her lover. "Now, where does Ramsey Bolton sleep?"

                "In - in the central tower, at the very top."

                "Very good. Where does the Lady Sansa sleep?"

                “The – the room below."

                "Excellent, good man. One final question, dearest, dearest one. Do you know who we are?"

                "No - no! Please, I have a wife -"

                "Hush," she murmurs. "Hush now. My name is Arya Stark. This is my brother, Jon Snow. We are here to kill Ramsey Bolton." The guard looks between them in horror.

                "No - no, please - you said if I answered your questions, you'd let me live, please -"

                "Oh, Jon, so I did," she says, turning big, tragic eyes onto him. He chuckles darkly, moving forward, reading her unspoken cue.

                "She did say so, didn't she? What a pity - she so enjoys killing," Jon whispers, sliding his hand into the guard's hair to wrap his fingers around Arya's. He draws his dagger. "But if you recall - I made you no such promises." In the second it takes the guard to realise that he is going to die, Jon slits his throat in one slashing, beautiful movement, even as Arya yanks their combined hands backwards to force his neck to an impossible angle. The blood spray coats both their faces and as the lifeless corpse slumps to the ground between them, he kicks it aside to storm towards her. She lets him force her against the wall, push his thigh between her legs to hold her there. She tips back her head, a breathy moan falling from her lips. He brings his bloodied hand to her face, wipes the blood of both guards across her lips. She whines like a wolf.

                "Jon," she whimpers. His name on her lips is dripping with heat and lust and adrenaline. She leans forward, licking her lips and outright moaning. His cock jumps in the confines of his breeches, he is burning for her. He wants to throw her to the ground, rip down her breeches and smallclothes and mount her like the wolves they are, bury himself in sin and heat and claim her as his own. "You should be bloody too," she whispers, and it is her who crashes their mouths together and instigates their kiss. He tastes the blood, he tastes the lust, he tastes her and she is everything, everything he imagined she would be, and so much more besides. He groans into her open mouth before ripping himself away to bury his face in her neck and bite the skin there. He puts his bloodied palm over her mouth to keep her quiet, grunts in pleasure as he feels her tongue lap at it eagerly. By the time he relinquishes the skin of her throat, she is panting like a bitch in heat, rubbing her covered cunt on his thigh frantically. He thrusts against her hip harshly.

                "D'you feel that, Arya?" he demands, his voice hoarse with desperate lust. "Feel how hard your brother's cock is for you?" She nods, the desperate movements of her hips as she grinds against his thigh never ceasing.

                "Do you want to know how fucking wet my cunt is for my brother's cock?" she responds. "Gods, Jon -"

                "Can you come like this?" he asked her, pulling back to see her face, to admire the bruise already blooming at her neck where his teeth bit down. Her face is streaked with scarlet blood, her eyes are deep and dark and glowing, she's never, ever been so bloody beautiful. "Can you come for me like this, Arya, knowing how badly I want to fuck you?" She nods.

                "Jon, Jon - Gods!"           

                "There are no Gods here," he snarls, running his bloodied hand through her hair. "The Gods are nothing to us, we are monsters. Do you understand me, Arya? We are the Gods here." She reaches her peak as he pours blasphemy and profanity into her ear, he just barely covers her mouth in time. His own peak is reached when he bites her neck again and he comes tasting her skin under tongue and lips and teeth.

  
She shakes in his arms for a long, long time, and he is no less shaken than she is. He eases her to her feet gently, strokes fingers down her skin.

                "You're beautiful," he tells her hoarsely. She takes his hand, holds it tight.

                "Come, brother," she says, her voice dark and promising. "We have a debt to exact."

 


	6. Arya III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter contains graphic description of murder.

She lets go of his hand only to join him in killing the guards who they come across between the crypts and Ramsey's room. By the time they reach his door, and kill the guards who stand outside it, their palms are sliding together, slick with blood. No sound issues from inside the room, and he turns to her, raises her blood slick hands to his lips. He kisses them, blood staining his lips, making his dark beard glisten in the torch light.

                "Beautiful sister," he murmurs. "Are you ready?" She takes in how handsome he looks with his face sprayed with blood, with his eyes that beautiful, glowing black.

                "I am ready, brother." He gives her his dagger, and she smiles at him.

                "Use it on him while you carve him into pieces." He opens the door for her, and on silent feet she approaches the bed. The sleeping figure of Ramsey Bolton stirs slightly as Jon closes the door. Arya looks back over her shoulder, smiles at Jon. He grins back, nods - and she climbs up onto Ramsey's bed. As it dips under her weight, she sees Ramsey stir in earnest.

                "There had better be a good reason for you disturbing me, Reek -" Arya swings herself over him, settling her weight across his hips as Jon starts to stroll around the room, lighting candles and lamps. Ramsey Bolton's eyes fly open as her weight settles on him. "Who the fuck -" Arya holds a bloody finger to her lips, smiling behind it as his eyes take in the state she must be in - drenched in blood and gore. The man's pale blue eyes widen as she shows him the knife and Jon strolls over to sit on the edge of the bed.

                "Allow me to introduce us," Jon says, his voice a lazy, liquid roll. "We're the people who just murdered twenty of your guards. We're the people here to kill you - ah, ah!" he snaps, as Ramsey's face contracts with fury and his mouth opens to speak. "Don't interrupt me, Bolton, else the girl currently straddling you will carve out your tongue for me - won't you, dearest girl?"

                "Nothing would please me more, sweetest one." Arya traces his lips with the point of her dagger.

                "She's very good at killing, Bolton. Eleven of your men died at her pretty hands tonight. She's going to kill you too, of course, but very, very slowly. You see, Bolton, this is not just an assassination attempt. No, this is vengeance. My name is Jon Snow. And this is Arya Stark. And we very much want you to know that we are genuinely going to enjoy making you pay dearly for every hurt you inflicted on our sister." Ramsey's jaw has gone slack with shock, as his eyes flicker between the two of them and Arya sees apprehension start to grow in his face.

                "I still have hundreds of men in this castle," Ramsey spits at them. "They'll come across the bodies soon enough, the first thing they'll do is check on me -"

                "I'm sure they will," Arya says brightly, smiling at him. "Jon, be a sweet - lock the door?" He obeys her, turning the great key and slamming the bar into place across it. "This was my home, Bolton, every door in it was designed to be locked and barred, because it would create trouble for marauding armies if they came. And we locked and barred all six of them that lie between you, and the entrance to this tower. Breaking them all down - I would imagine that would take at least an hour. Plenty of time to play with you. And please, do feel free to scream, Lord Bolton. I can only imagine how very, very happy hearing your screams will make me."

                "You cannot do this!" Ramsey shouts suddenly, genuine fear creeping onto his face. Arya looks at Jon and laughs.

                "I think we can, Lord Bolton," Jon says, returning to the bed. Ramsey begins to struggle violently beneath Arya, thrashing wildly as he attempts to dislodge her. As his fists clench, Jon moves, so lightning fast even Arya nearly misses it. He holds Ramsey's wrists in an iron grip.                "Touch her," Jon warns, "and I'll feed you your own cock. Arya - do you want to please me, sweet sister?"

                "Yes," she breathes, staring at him. "What shall I do first?"

                "I think we should start with his hands, Arya. He was so keen to hit you, after all, and so keen to put them on our sister. I don't think he really needs them anymore, does he?"

                "No. He doesn't."

  
Ramsey screams. It's almost lazy, Jon giving her instructions, her carving as he directs. She's laughing by the time she slices his mouth open, giving him a dreadful, grinning rictus. Jon moves to sit behind her over Ramsey's legs, and his hands slide around her waist. He unbuttons and removes her jerkin and tunic, leaves her in just her shirt, which he sets about covering in bloody handprints as he gropes her belly, hips, ribs, breasts. She arches into his hands when he pinches her flesh between sharp fingers. Beneath them, a dying Ramsey Bolton begins to choke out something that might be the word _monsters_. Jon just laughs darkly.

                "Yes, Bolton, we are monsters. The monsters came for you, Lord Bolton. I want you to bear that in mind." Jon's hand comes to cover hers on the hilt of the dagger and she presses back against him, the hard length of his cock pressing up against her arse. "It's time, sweet sister," he instructs. From far below them, in the courtyard of Winterfell, the sounds of ringing shouts start up. "It looks like help is on the way, Lord Bolton. It's a real shame, of course, that it will get here far, far too late to be of any use at all to you. Give me the blade, Arya."

  
She surrenders it, moves so Jon can take her place over Ramsey's hips. In the end, it's not their names that are carved into his chest - she watches Jon carve the outline of a direwolf into him instead. Ramsey Bolton dies as he finishes it, and Arya giggles at the almost-pout on Jon's face.   
                "Did you want to slit his throat, brother dearest?" she asks, crawling up behind him and wrapping her arms around him. "Watch the light leave his eyes?" Jon nodded, letting his head fall back against her shoulder.

                "You got to make him bleed, sister," Jon answers, reaching behind him to touch her waist. "That's enough for me - to see how beautiful you were while you made him beg you." She smiles unseen, kisses his neck and darts out her tongue to taste him. His groan is earthy, deep.

                "We should do something with him," she says regretfully. "If we wait for the guards to burst in here, they might just kill us on the spot. And we need to tell Sansa, Jon." He groans, takes her hand from where she's wrapped it over his chest - and presses it against the front of his breeches. She can feel the hard length of him and she wants it, Gods she wants it. She wants him to throw her down on bloodied sheets and fuck her senseless.

                "If we had more time," he promises her, "I would be fucking you right here." She lets the shudder pass through her at the hint, at the mere idea of it.

                "And I would have let you," she promises in return. "But we have work to do now."

  
She redresses herself in tunic and jerkin after he undid them for her, and he watches her as he cleans his dagger's blade on the sheets Ramsey died on. They hadn't made a plan for after. Everything they had planned involved murdering Ramsey in ever more creative ways. But it turns out Jon has actually thought ahead - although really, it seems suspiciously quiet. She can hear no guards attempting to break down the doors to reach their Lord, she can hear no servants setting up an outcry.

                "We may need Sansa to vouch for us," Jon says. "We should wake her first." Arya nods.

                "Shall we just - leave him there?" she asks. Now the high is starting to leave her, she feels a little lost, more uncertain, as she always does after a kill. Perhaps Jon knows that, because he strides over to her, his face still alive with the kill, with the energy of it. He frames her face in his hands and strokes her cheeks, her hair, eyes, lips, nose.

                "Next time we kill together," he promises, following the path his fingers took with his lips, kissing her gently. "I'm going to make sure that afterwards, I have time to take care of you, keep you wrapped up tight." She nods, tips her head back under his ministrations.

                "This helps," she admits. "Just - just tell me what to do."

                "Have a look around here," he tells her. "See if you can find me some rope?" She obeys him happily, although she is slightly surprised to actually find rope - who keeps rope in their bedchamber? It's only when she pulls it out of the drawer she finds it in that she sees that the fibre of it is stained with blood in various places. Her fists clench on it before she hands it over to Jon and watches his deft fingers make a noose of it. "Good girl," he tells her softly. "Look out of the window? Tell me if you can see any guards outside."

                "Yes," she answers him. "But - Jon, they're not doing anything. They're just - looking up here." He leaves Ramsey's corpse, strides over to join her at the window. "They must have heard him screaming," she says. "Yet none of them seem in a rush to save him." Jon is smiling a dangerous, brutal smile.

                "Open the window - and then come and help me," he instructs her. "We have a slight change of plans." She opens the window - and that draws the attention of the guards. She sees them start to look up before she goes back to Jon.

                "It got their attention," she tells him, watching him pull the noose round Ramsey's neck.

                "Good. Take his legs." Between the two of them, they carry Ramsey's body to the window, and Jon dumps him down to tie the rope securely around a leg of the heavy oak chest. He motions her backwards - and drops Ramsey out of the window. Arya giggles when she hears shouts go up from the watching guards, but Jon won't let her lean out to watch the reaction. He takes her hands instead. "Come, little sister," he says, kissing her. She opens her mouth to him at once, tastes blood and Jon in an equal, heady mix of sin and pleasure. He draws back from her with a groan.

                "Jon, please," she almost whines, trying to follow him.

                "Soon," he says, and she can hear the promise. "We have to go to Sansa now. Can you be patient, just a little longer?" She nods.

                "Yes," she agrees, stepping back from him. If he isn't touching her, she feels like she can control herself a little better. He leads her downstairs by the hand.

  
Sansa's door is locked, and Jon knocks on it gently.

                "Sansa? Are you in there? Sansa, don't be afraid. It's Jon - and Arya." At those words, Arya hears the sound of scrambling footsteps, a quiet scratching sound.

                "Jon?" The voice is meek, frightened, not like Sansa at all. Hovering behind Jon, Arya feels her rage rising again at the thought of what Ramsey must have done to her to make her sound so broken. "Arya? Is it - is it really you?"

                "It's really us, Sansa. Where are the keys? We want to let you out." Sansa gives a dry sob.

                "Ramsey - Ramsey keeps the keys. I don't know where. You have to get out of here, he'll kill you -"

                "He's never going to hurt anyone again," Arya says, her voice hot with rage. "Is the door barred, Sansa?"

                "No, no just locked. What do you mean - I heard screaming -" Jon turns to Arya.

                "I can break it down if it's just locked -" Arya shakes her head.

                "Move."

  
Her pack has tools to pick locks, and the Brotherhood had taught her how to do it. She does not have her pack, having left it safely in the crypts, but Sansa might be able to help.

                "Sansa? It's me."

                "Arya! Arya, is that really you? Oh, Arya!"

                "Sansa, have you got hairpins in there? I need you to slide two under the door for me so I can pick the lock." Footsteps move away, return, and two plain pins slide out under the door. She takes a knee, picks the lock methodically while Jon waits, his impatience a tangible presence against her skin. The lock clicks, she sighs with triumph as she reaches up to open it. The door swings open.

  
She expects Sansa to be immediately visible, waiting eagerly for them - but just at first she does not see her. The room is pitch black inside. Jon takes a torch from the scone by the door, raises it high to illuminate himself and Arya, still kneeling on the floor.

                "Sansa?" Jon asks, his voice very, very gentle, very soft. "It's really us, Sansa -" his voice trails off as a figure in a white nightgown creeps into the circle of light, shielding her eyes with almost claw-like hands and fingers. Arya's heart leaps simultaneously with horror and rage.

  
Sansa is thin, painfully so, paper-white skin stretched over bones. Bruises blossom up and down her bare arms, across what of her neck and chest is exposed by the gown. Her fists clench. Ramsey did not suffer enough, they did not cause him enough pain to make him pay for this. Even Sansa's hair looks thin, a far cry from her long waterfall of copper fire she had once boasted. The ghost with Sansa's face lowers her hands as she adjusts to the light, staring between the two of them.

                "It's really you," she whispers. She obviously sees the blood, gesturing at them both. "Is that - is that all -"

                "Not all of it," Jon answers. "But most of it. He's dead, Sansa. We killed him. And I swear to you, we made him suffer." Sansa blue eyes brim with tears.

                "But - but his guards -"

                "We killed a lot of them too. And those that are left - they don't seem too keen on defending him. We have taken Winterfell, Sansa. We have come home. And nobody is ever, ever going to hurt you again."


	7. Jon IV

He carries Sansa out of the dark chamber Ramsey has been keeping her in, after Arya ventures inside and comes up with a cloak and furs to wrap her up in. With Arya striding ahead to unbar and unlock the doors, Sansa's thin fingers cling to his jerkin. Pity and horror and murderous fury mingle in his heart - and he knows Arya feels it too. He sees it in the way she's coming out of whatever strange submissiveness overtook her after they murdered Ramsey Bolton together, in the way she looks at him, in the way she looks at Sansa.

  
He expects to step out into a courtyard full of guards, ready to defend themselves or surrender or anything in between. To his surprise, there's only one guard there, an older man with greying hair and a wine skin clutched in his hands. The gates of Winterfell are standing open, and the only other occupants of the courtyard appear to be the servants, who are clustered together, looking fearfully at the blood-soaked Arya as she makes immediately for the guard. Needle is drawn and clutched tight in her hand, but before she can take a swing, the guard speaks.

                "Ain't no need for swords, whoever you are. Most of 'is men have fled," he says, jerking a thumb up towards where Ramsey Bolton's corpse hangs against Winterfell's stone walls. "Said they weren't hanging around to meet whatever was capable of killing 'im and living to tell the tale. I see you freed the poor girl," he continues, nodding at the bundle of furs in Jon's arms. "And I'm guessing as 'ow you must be Starks. Welcome 'ome. Kill me, if you like. But I never laid 'and on the little Lady, tried to do what I could for 'er." Sansa turns her head from where she's been resting it on Jon's chest. She tugs lightly on his jerkin, and he bends his head to listen to her weak voice.

                "He did, he was kind when he could be -"

                "Arya," Jon instructs. "Don't kill him. Take him to the stables, lock him into one of the kennels there. Can deal with it in the morning." Arya nods, and the guard proffers a ring of keys to her.

                "Yer'll need these to lock me in." As Arya leads him away, Jon hitches Sansa slightly in his arms.

                "Winterfell belongs to the Starks now," he says, his voice ringing over the silent servants. "I don't advise trying to run. I am taking my sister to a bed, to keep her warm and safe. If there is a Maester here - I suggest he is sent for, to come to the old Lord's chambers." He carries Sansa away, carries her to the room their father and her mother once occupied. The room was kept in order, he had time to realise, although he briefly wondered why Bolton had never claimed it. He put Sansa into bed, controlling his movements to make himself gentle with her, reminding himself that Arya will need his darkness soon, to match her own. He covers her with more furs, sits down beside her to stroke back her hair. "D'you want to eat? Drink something? Just sleep?"

                "Sleep," she answers, and her eyes close at once. He stays beside her a long time, wondering where Arya is and what she could possibly be doing - until the door opens and she appears. Beneath the blood, her face is nearly grey. He crosses to her swiftly, backs her out of the room to shut the door so Sansa might sleep undisturbed. Arya grips his arms to tight he is certain she will leave bruises under her hands.

                "Tell me," he orders her. "What is wrong?" Arya swallows hard, he sees her throat move with it.

                "Jon - Theon Greyjoy is locked in the kennels," she whispers. His heart screams with renewed rage but she's already shaking her head. "No, no, you don't understand - I saw him when I was locking up the guard. I was going to go in there - dear Gods, Jon, I was going to kill him, carve him up like we did Ramsey, bring you his head - but I think Ramsey already got there. Jon, he's missing fingers, toes, there's scars all over him and - and there's chunks carved out of him and he's thinner than even Sansa is. And when I said his name - when I said his name, he just kept saying his name was Reek. That guard said Ramsey kept him as a kind of pet." Jon scrubs a hand over his face, looks up and down the familiar corridor. He needs her somewhere private, so he takes her hand and pulls her into Ned's old solar.

  
Once alone, behind a firmly closed door, he sits in the chair and pats his thighs. She mounts him at once, straddling his lap and pressing their bodies together from chest to thighs. He sighs out tension that's been itching under his skin since she left his sight, drags her close, kisses the bruise he left on her neck before they killed Bolton. She makes no effort to move back or pull away, so he wriggles his hands between them as best as he can, once more starting to unlace her jerkin. He slides it off her shoulders, follows it with her tunic coat, slips a hand inside the bloodstained shirt to stroke his fingertips up and down her spine. A shudder passes through her with each downward stroke of his hands, but everything in him, everything that makes up the strange, shared connection they seem to boast tells him that it is not the shudder of someone who wishes they were not being touched.

  
He chooses the easy question first.

                "Where did you go, after Ramsey breathed his last?" he murmurs in her ear. "You drifted, my sweetest sister."

                "I do, sometimes, after I kill someone I particularly despise," she answers, using the same intimate, whispered tone he does. "I need - I need to not think sometimes."

                "And what I did for you? Did it help?" He feels her nod, her head cradled as it is in his shoulder. He keeps up the sweep of random patterns up and down her spine, until she's shuddered out all of the tension and feels boneless in his lap. He withdraws one hand to curl it tight around one of her thighs.

                "I needed it so badly, Jon. I need you so badly," she mumbles into his neck. "I need you now, brother, my beautiful, dark brother."

                "What do you need?" he asks. "Say it, and it's yours."

                "I can't," she murmurs. He moves the hand on her thigh to her hair, pulls it back so her head lifts from his shoulder and he can look her in the eye.

                "Tell me, sister," he murmurs. "I order it."

                "I never was good with taking orders, Jon."

                "I won't judge you, dear sister," he promises. He flattens his hand on the skin of her back, spreading out his fingertips to cover as much of her warm flesh as he can. Another, stronger shudder passes through her - and she moves back enough to get her own hands between them. She unlaces the ties holding his own jerkin closed, lays it open.

                "Jon," she says, and her voice is so dark, so needy, so breathless that it makes him hard. "I need to see you. All of you. I need to know we're both still alive, I need to feel you."

  
They strip each other, her hands slightly unsure, his own absolutely steady - because this right here, with her smooth, pale skin slowly blooming beneath his eyes and hands - this feels right. This is where they are meant to be, bared chest to bared chest, with blood drying sticky and thick on faces and hair and hands, with each other. He supposes a man who has escaped the grasp of the Stranger only by a miracle should feel more aware of his own mortality. He feels fucking invincible. He feels untouchable.

  
With his chest now bare of any covering, she reaches out a hand that is now absolutely steady. Her fingertips trace each one of his scars, as if she is committing them to memory. He feels at ease with it, he knows she will not hurt or harm him - but when she slides off his lap, he fears for a moment she's rejecting him. At least, until hands part his knees and she drops to her own between his spread thighs. Her head bends gently as she leans forward, her mouth is warm and soft as she presses a kiss to each of his scars in turn. When she raises her eyes to his, the lust and the rage on her face takes away his breath, leaves him stunned.

                "I wish you hadn't hung them," she murmurs. "I cannot tell you how much I would have enjoyed killing them. Hanging seems too quick."

                "Little sister," he says, cupping her jaw in his palm, stroking his thumb over her lips. "What would you have done?" She shrugs.

                "I don't know," she says, looking at him with fire in her eyes as she darts out her tongue to lick at the pad of his thumb. "There's nothing that would be enough to punish anyone who tries to part us." He reaches down for her, drags her back into his lap.

                "Nobody is ever going to part us, nobody is ever going to take you from me," he promises her. "And anyone foolish enough to try dies at our hands." This time, he is the one to kiss her, to crush her against him. She moans into his mouth as her bare breasts press against his chest, and it's with impatience and lust mixed in equal parts that he moves his hands between them again to cup them, to play with her nipples, to pinch and twist until she's crying out. Whether it's pain or pleasure or both, she breaks their kiss, arches her back to press more eagerly into his palms. "The floor?" he asks, pinching hard enough to bruise. "Or d'you want a bed?"

                "Bed later," she snaps. "Just touch me." They wrestle each other to the ground, fighting with breeches, laces that tighten in the face of impatient tugs, until hers give out and he yanks her breeches down along with her smallclothes, not caring a damn for the tearing sounds he hears.

  
That's when he sees her scars for the first time. There are three of them, red and raised and angry - two lines, one circular. He's seen the wounds enough to know that the irregular shape of the central scar means someone twisted the knife in her belly. They're low down, below her belly button - and when he presses his hand to them, she hisses at him.

                "Do they hurt?"

                "Sometimes," she admits, staring up at the ceiling. "But the bitch who gave me them suffered more." He moves his hand down, drags a knuckle up her hidden slit. She gasps, bucks into his touch. She's dripping wet.

                "Tell me," he orders, his voice dark. "Tell me what you did to her."

                "She was waiting to watch me die," she murmurs, spreading her legs. He opened her up to his fingers, let himself explore her lazily. "And when I pulled Needle out from where I had hidden it in my bed, she laughed at me. She thought I was dying." He slides a finger into her heat and she bucks, gasps. "Oh, she was so wrong, Jon. Because the moment, the moment I had Needle in my hand - it was like you were there beside me. I could feel you." He bends his head, licks her, tastes sweetness exploding across his tongue. He knows as soon as he tastes it that he will never stop hungering for her, for her cunt, for the deliciousness of her. If he had any qualms left about her being his sister, they are extinguished forever as the taste of her consumes him. They will sin together, at long last - they can fall into darkness as one. "I started with her hands, like Ramsey. I cut them off and listened to her screaming. I cut her throat, but not deep enough to kill, just deep enough that she couldn't scream, just gurgle as I tortured her. I cut off her face while she was still alive, Jon. If you do it while they still breath, it can't be used, you see. I fucking erased her from the world." While she talks, he redoubles his efforts, feels her wet heat get slicker and slicker, fucking her first with one finger, then two, then three. When she peaks, her thighs close around his head and she screams in pleasure.

  
He fumbles desperately with his breeches until at last, he can free his aching cock. If her skin always feels warm to him, her cunt around his cock feels like a furnace. She thrashes beneath him as he fucks her with an abandon that borders on violence, his hand wrapping lightly around her throat for leverage. She spits and snarls - but her hips meet his, thrust for thrust, her nails dig and scratch so deep along his back that he knows they'll leave physical wounds. In retaliation, he bites and sucks along her collarbone until she is wearing a necklace of scarlet marks he knows will bruise and ache by morning.

  
They fall over the peak together, both crying out to invoke Gods who have surely turned their backs on this sin and them for committing it. He slumps onto her and she wraps arms and legs around him to keep him there, clinging to him as he clings to her. When they separate, his seed is seeping out of her, a mix of it and her juices mingling to make the insides of her thighs glisten in the candlelight. He dips his fingers back between her legs, bring them to her lips.

                "Suck," he orders. She obeys, licking, sucking and kissing his fingers until she has even removed the blood that still stains his hands.

  
There will be time later to talk. For now, it is enough to cling to each other and just wait for their hearts to calm. Gods, but he loves her. If he is to burn in the seven hells for this - it'll be worth it, he decides, dragging her in for another kiss. Perhaps being a monster is not all bad.


	8. Arya IV

The air between them has shifted. She expects that everyone will know what they have done, that it will written on her as clearly as the bruises on her throat and collarbones. She and Jon wash the blood off their faces and hands, restore themselves to surface normality after he retrieves their packs from the crypts and gets a servant to bring them water. The Maester looks at Sansa briefly while she sleeps, but the deep, almost haunted look in his eyes tells Arya that he knows the extent already.

                "I can look at her again when she wakes," he tells the both of them, once more standing in the Lord's solar. "But the most obvious concern is food. She needs to eat, my - er - my Lord, my Lady -"

                "Arya," she interrupts. "I'm not a Lady. Sansa was always the Lady."

                "Er - of course. Lady Sansa should be fed gradually, starting slowly, with simple foods - nothing too rich. Porridge, white meats, vegetables, milk puddings - plain and simple, in small but regular amounts. Her injuries will heal in time. There is, as far as I can see, no sign or indication of infection." From the corner of her eye, she can see Jon playing with a dagger, twirling it point-down on the desk, when he speaks, his voice is slightly threatening.

                "Why was it allowed to reach this point?" he asks the Maester. "Did any of you try to save her?"

                "When the Lady Sansa first arrived, there was a woman. Bolton instructed her to act as her maid, and the woman attempted to help her, befriend her - tried to help Sansa call for help. It was something about a candle in the the topmost window of the old tower - that if the Lady Sansa lit it, help would come for her. But the Lady Sansa asked - Reek -" Jon doesn't let him continue there.

                "His name is not Reek. His name is Theon. I don't know exactly what Bolton did to him - but I'm going to find out. But his name is not Reek." The Maester nods awkwardly.

                "Er - as I say, my Lord, the Lady Sansa asked Theon to light the candle. But - you have to understand. Theon has been Bolton's prisoner for years. He has been tortured and brutalised for every day of those years. I cannot say if he will ever recover. Theon told Bolton of the Lady Sansa's request - and Bolton had the woman flayed alive and staked to a cross in the courtyard, to show her to the Lady Sansa. It was made very clear we would all endure the same fate if we did not obey his orders concerning the Lady Sansa."

  
Jon dismisses the Maester, goes to stand beside the window. She crosses to him, wraps her arms around his chest, rests her head on his shoulder blade.

                "I need -" he begins, then falters, his voice trailing off. She tightens her grip.

                "Just tell me," she murmurs. "Tell me and I'll do it."

                "I just -"

                "Jon," she says, ducking under his arm to stand between him and the window, gazing up into his face. "We do this together," she says, reaching up to scratch her nails through his beard. He makes a pleased humming sound as she does it. "So whatever you need - what ever you want, tell me and it's yours."

                "I need to hunt," he answers her. "Some of those guards might still be near enough to catch. And I need to hunt them down."

                "Do you want me to come? Or do you need to do this alone?"

                "Alone," he answers. "If you don't mind that."

                "No, I don't mind. I'll sit with Sansa." Relief spreads over his face.

                "Thank you," he murmurs, bending his head to kiss her deep. She opens her mouth to him at once, sighs as he eases back.

                "Take the wolves," she tells him. "Then I can be with both of you." He nods.

                "I will." His hand runs over her hair, her jaw, trails over where her clothes hide the bites he placed along her collar, presses against the bruise on her neck. She feels the ache, leans into it and he smiles dangerously at her. "You like it, don't you sweetest girl? The pain, the bruises?" She nods slowly, never looking away from him. She feels as if she could drown in the depths of his eyes.

                "Only when you give them to me. I like knowing you've touched me."

                "All you ever have to do is ask," he tells her, and something dark and nameless purrs with delight inside her at the idea that she can ask for such things, that if she wants him, she has only to ask for him and he will be hers.

  
He leaves her with a warm kiss and she goes to sit with Sansa, who is sleeping quietly even if she is as white as the pillows her head is resting on. Arya hasn't missed how the only unbruised part of her sister is her face, and somehow that makes her even angrier at Bolton. Even with him dead - very dead - she wants to kill him. She wants him hurting all over again, wants to hear his screaming again. She digs her nails into her thigh to try and calm herself. From somewhere outside, howls arise, and she recognises the calls of Ghost and Nymeria. She imagines Jon has joined them, that he had offered each of them a pet and a rub behind the ears as a hello. Settling back in her chair, she closes her eyes. She will wake if Sansa does anything, of that she is certain.

  
It is easier than she expected to fall asleep, the combination of emotional highs and physical exertion have wrung her out. When she becomes aware of her surroundings again, it's as Nymeria, with snow beneath her paws and the scent of Jon filling her nose. She looks around, finds him walking through the Wolfwood's exterior edges, while she ranges alongside him, out in the open. She scents the air, drawing back her muzzle as she scents strangers. Soldiers came this way - she can smell sweat, fear, boiled leather, cold metal. Strange how all humans stink so much of fear. She whines softly, Jon's eyes snapping to her. When he smiles, she knows he knows. She looks ahead, whines again, looks back to Jon - and sees the understanding on his face. Even as Nymeria, her heart is pounding. She wants to see what Jon does to the Bolton soldiers, but from somewhere far away, she can hear sounds - half-sobs, little cries, someone calling her name. She growls softly, and when Jon looks back at her, she begins to fade. She sees the understanding even as the noises become louder.

  
Her eyes snap open. Sansa is thrashing in bed, her eyes screwed up and still closed - nightmare, Arya supposes. For a moment, she hesitates, hovers - she doesn't know what to do, how to react. She has never been any good at comfort. But - what would she want? What had she wanted, in the weeks following the Red Wedding, when she'd wake up prickling with a cold sweat and terror closing her throat? Someone to just be there, to touch her, to hold her and reassure her that she wasn't dying alongside Robb. She'd never told the Hound about it. She edges her way to the bed.

                "Sansa? Sansa, it's alright," she begins tentatively, even though it is not alright, none of this is alright. "I'm here, Sansa, wake up." She touches her sister's hair gently, pets her awkwardly. Sansa's blue eyes fly open and she shoots up into a sitting position, eyes wild and staring. "Sansa? You - you alright? You don't have to be afraid, Sansa. He's gone. Dead and gone and besides I'm here," Arya says, her voice growing in confidence as the panic begins dying out of Sansa's eyes. "I've got Needle. I'm going to keep you safe, Sansa, alright?" Slowly, and without breaking eye-contact, Sansa nods. "What do you need?" Arya asks, desperate to help and feeling utterly useless.

                "Will you - will you lie down with me?" Sansa asks, in a small, fragile voice. "And - and hold onto me? I keep thinking you and Jon were just a dream."

                "And will touching me make you remember it's not?" Sansa nods. Arya climbs up onto the bed and starts faffing with the pillows, arranging them so she is half reclined, her legs spread. "Come here," she urges Sansa. "Keep all the furs if you like." Well wrapped up, Sansa sidles over and with a cautious exhale, lies down once more, now resting her head on Arya's belly. Arya offers her one hand and Sansa grips it in her own, frail, fragile ones. Her free hand goes to Sansa's hair, begins stroking it gently. Sansa lets out a soft, soft sigh. "Is this OK?" Arya asks softly.

                "Yes. Thank you."

  
They're still like that when Jon snicks open the door and slides inside. Arya is still awake, but Sansa is once more dead to the world, calmer now, her thin fingers still tangled with Arya's own. Jon looks at them, and Arya stares at him, her heart stuttering with something like fear.

  
He is bloody to the hairline and when he smiles, even his teeth are stained scarlet. His jerkin is glistening in the firelight, and as the silence grows, her eyes dart down to locate the source of a steady drip-drip-drip. Blood is literally dripping off his hands and his smile is a terribly beautiful thing to behold. She feels her heart speed up, become erratic inside her chest. She wants to taste it too, to push her tongue into his mouth and taste blood there, to lick his fingers clean so he can shove them into her cunt. When his smile only grows, she knows he can see it all on her face.

  
But they can't, and both of them know it. Not for anything would she disturb Sansa, not for worlds would she disturb this deep, restful sleep. She beckons him, murmurs in the lowest voice she can:  
"Go and wash. You'll terrify the life out of her if she sees you." He nods - but before he leaves his touches the very tip of his smallest finger to her lips, leaves an easily-lickable dot of blood there for her. She savours it, closing her eyes and biting her lips to keep the moan inside.

  
When she opens her eyes, he has gone, silent as a ghost.

  
Silent as the grave.


	9. Jon V

The washing of the blood from his skin is almost ritualistic in its thoroughness. Wipe, wipe, wipe, rinse. Wipe, wipe, wipe, rinse. Wipe, wipe, wipe, rinse. It contrasts sharply with the savageness of the killing, of how he had killed them, of the strength he had found that he hadn't known existed. It had been the most exhilarating, brutal, beautiful experience of his entire life. It was if making love to his own sister had opened the final lock in his mind, as if he had embraced the ultimate sin and been washed clean of any obligation to keep pretending to be anything as pathetic as human. Because he saw it now, he understood - he was not human. He had come back from the darkness as something far greater, something far more spectacular. To ignore it was to deliberately weaken himself, to reject it was blasphemy in its purest form. He had to let it in, allow the darkness into every fibre of his being - and he had done so. He had become the Stranger, if one wanted to quantify it with anything so base as a God. Even the Gods hadn't wanted him, he reminded himself - they had let him lie in darkness to be pulled out by a sorceress, even they had known they could not contain him. He understood now - he was transcendent. He was more than human, more than Gods, more than life. He was going to rule - and Arya would stand by his side.

  
He had feared she would flinch from him, that she would see the change on him and recoil. Because Arya was human, she had not been dragged from darkness by magic and fire - how could she not fear him? But he had stepped into that room, with her so tenderly holding their poor, broken sister - and he had seen the desire flare onto her face, and understood that too. Arya was human, yes, but she was cloaked in darkness too. She was carrying chips of it in her heart, she was brutal and fiery and eager for blood. She was motivated by revenge, by hate, by lust and desire as much as he. In a way, he thought people should be far more afraid of Arya than of him. He was a monster from the grave - Arya was a monster from mortal life. Her darkness was in her soul - he was no longer convinced he possessed such a thing. But she was also caring, and loving, and very occasionally she was vulnerable. It drew him in, made him want. Want her, want her body, want to own her. And none of it, not a bit of any of it, frightened him at all because he knew, he knew, that she wanted him to want those things.

  
He lets a smile curve his lips as he dries off, pulling out of his recent memories of his sister closing her eyes and licking her lips to savour the blood she'd clearly wanted more of. He hadn't trusted himself to stay. He goes back into the Lord's chamber, finds the scene exactly as he left it - except now Arya is sleeping too. He slides onto the bed and makes no impression, his body seemingly weightless if he wants it to be. He stretches himself out full length beside the two of them, and closes his eyes with a sigh of contentment to have Arya's scent filling his senses and the warmth he can feel radiating off her pressing through the clean shirt he'd found to sleep in.

  
When he wakes, it's because daylight is pressing into his eyelids, almost shouting at him to wake. He opens his eyes to see Sansa's big blue ones staring at him, a very faint suggestion of a smile gracing her thin face. Arya, he notices at once, is still well away.

                "You're definitely not a dream," Sansa murmurs. He shakes his head as best as he can.

                "No, not a dream. How do you feel?"

                "Rested. Lighter. Did um - did she stay like this all night?" He nods.

                "Looks like it." Arya stirs as Sansa tries to move, grunting in slight discomfort. Her eyes open and she grimaces, and Jon realises her back must be aching like mad from lying like that all - or most of - the night. Sansa moves off her fully, and Arya stretches, long, cat-like, her body moving languorously.

                "You could have shoved me off," Sansa whispers, looking slightly stricken. Arya just flaps a hand at her, shaking her head in the clearly recognisable signal of 'nah, don't worry'.

                "I need a piss," she announces blandly. "Your head is heavy." She wriggles down to the bottom of the bed and to his great amusement, he notices she's still wearing Needle.

                "Did you wear that all night?" She nods.

                "I always wear it." She shuffles out of the room and Sansa bites her lip.

                "I didn't mean to hurt her -" Jon shakes his head.

                "She's fine, trust me. If she needed to move, I'm sure she would have done. D'you want

breakfast? A bath? Both?"

                "Both. Please."

                "Do you need the Maester to have a look at you?" She shakes her head.

                "He can't tell me anything I don't already know," she answers. "I know better than anyone else what he did to me." He nods, although he'd prefer it if she consented to an examination. Still, he can't - and won't - force her.

                "I'll get a couple of servants to bring the bath - and breakfast," he says, pulling open the door. Arya wanders back through it as soon as he does, yawning widely.

                "I ran into a servant," she says. "Sent them to bring breakfast and the bath. Figured Sansa might want those things," she adds, smiling. "And I could do with a bite to eat too," she adds, almost as an afterthought. Arya perches herself in a chair this time, scrubbing her hand over her face. He feels rested, revitalised, even on so little sleep, but her weariness is showing on her face. Porridge arrives, three steaming plates of it, and Arya digs into her own with unrestrained enthusiasm. Once upon a time, Sansa might have objected to her table manners, he thought with amusement. Now she didn't even bat an eyelash at it. It's only once three plates are scraped clean - Arya having finished the few spoonful’s he had left, and the good half-plateful Sansa had given up on.

  
It's Arya who brings up the elephant in the room.

                "Sansa," she says, her voice very gentle as she looks at her. "Sansa, I know it's possibly the last thing you want to talk about but - we need to ask you some things." Sansa nods.

                "I know. I - I won't break," Sansa answers, softly. She twines her thin fingers together in her lap. "I suppose you're going to ask me about Theon. If you locked that guard in the stables, you must have seen him."

                "I saw him," Arya said, her face setting into hard lines. "What's left of him, anyway."

                "Theon did not kill Bran and Rickon." The assertion takes them all by surprise. "He told me that, eventually. I think I was starting to get through - Reek, to get through to Theon. He wasn't lying, I could tell, he did not harm the boys. He said he hadn't been able to find them, that they had fled the castle with Hodor and some Wildling girl called Osha, or so he believed."

                "Thank the Gods," Arya whispers. "They might still be alive." Sansa laughs, a humourless, bitter sound.

                "A cripple and a seven year old. Unlikely."

                "It's a chance," Arya says, stubbornly. "And that is more than we thought we had. If they are alive to find, then we'll find them." Jon breaks in, not wanting an argument just now.

                "Why does - what's all this Reek business?"

                "Ramsey called him that. He's - you have to - he was a monster," Sansa forces out, flinching as if she expects the blow to land any moment. He sees Arya reach for her hands, covering them. Arya is by no stretch of the imagination describable as anything other than slender, but it's a muscled, strong slenderness. Next to Sansa's thin frame, she looks positively stocky.

                "Nobody is going to hurt you, or punish you, for anything you say," Arya says gently. "And he is never going to hurt anyone again. We are going to protect you - always."

                "You'll excuse me if I don't believe that right away," Sansa says, with an odd, choking laugh. "But you are not the first to promise me that."

                "Then we will keep protecting you until you do believe it," Jon says, reaching out to cover their joined hands with his own. "However long that takes. Don't worry about telling us anything - it can all wait until you are ready. And while you are getting better, Arya and I can see to Winterfell. We can call the Lords in, start asking questions about what they've been doing since Robb died - and how our ancestral home was allowed to go into the hands of traitors without any resistance," he finishes.

  
He clears out when the bath comes, and is slightly surprised that Arya follows him a couple of minutes later.

                "She asked me to go," she says by way of explanation. "I don't think she wants me to see the extent of it." He holds out his arm, and she comes to him at once, leaning against his body as he stands by the window. "Gods, Jon, I don't want to see the extent of it. When I wrapped her in my arms last night - I could feel every bone of her, it was like holding a tiny bird. She weighs nothing, I could pick her up. She feels so fragile."

                "We'll make her better," he answers. "No matter what it takes." She nods, trusting him, believing him. When she speaks again, he senses she wants to move on.

                "What do we do now?" she asks, pressing a little closer. He tightens his grip on her in response, bends his head to kiss her hair.

                "We send ravens to all the Houses this side of the Neck, and one to the Wall. We get Davos here, we get the Lords here. And we start getting ready for war."

                "Against the Night King." He nods, remembers she can't see him - but she's already talking again. "I'm going to fight with you. On the battlefield, Jon."

                "Arya -" he starts. She pulls backwards, shakes her head at him.

                "I'm not asking you for permission, Jon. I am telling you what I am going to do. And when the time comes to fight, I will be on the battlefield with you."

                "Have you ever had a fight that wasn't one on one?" She glares at him, stepping away from him completely now.

                "Do you not think I am capable? Do you think I could not fight? Everybody has a first battle eventually Jon - and if this is to be mine, then so be it. But when the time comes, I will not sit drinking wine beside a fire waiting for news. If I am going to die, then it will be fighting alongside you - not waiting for Wight’s to come and get me."

                "You are not going to die," he snarls, the monster in his chest roaring rage at the very idea. "You are going to be by my side forever."

                "Then I will start that journey by being by your side when the war comes," she snaps back at him. He can see her own anger rising. "You said it yourself, Jon - we belong together. So we do this together, or not at all. And if you're so concerned about whether I can handle more than a single challenger at a time - well then, when the Lords arrive, I'll take training alongside them, and learn to fight multiple opponents." She swings round and stalks to the door, pausing as she gets there. "Send for Tormund too," she says, almost casually. "He can fight me."

  
Jealousy paints his vision red. She's barely got the door open before he's beside her, almost impossibly fast. He picks her up, turns her to slam her back into the door, forcing it closed with an echoing bang. She struggles in his arms, until he seizes her hands in his and slams them over her head. With her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms pinned, she cannot keep fighting him.   
                "You're mine," he growls. The voice coming from him does not sound human, it is too deep, too rough. "Not his. He touches you and I'll rip his throat out with my teeth, Arya. Do you understand me? You are mine. You belong to me." Her eyes widen - and she bucks against him. But for all that, she fights.

                "I don't belong to anyone. Neither men nor Gods may claim to own me -"

                "I am neither man nor God," he interrupts her. He presses his body against hers more tightly. "I am so much more that either of those base elements, Arya. And you are mine, whether you like it or not. D'you understand?" She smirks at him, a dangerously charged challenge.

                "I don't think you can handle me, Jon," she murmurs. "I cannot be contained, or controlled, or owned. Not even by you."

                "I beg to differ, little sister." He lets go of her hands with one hand, leaving the other to pin her wrists to the door. His hands aren't really all that big, she could wriggle free in a moment if she wanted to - but she doesn't. She stays absolutely still as he trails his fingers down her face, over her jaw, presses the middle two to her lips. "Suck," he orders. Her eyes darken. She parts her lips, and teases, licks - sucks. He begins to thrust his fingers gently, not wanting to make her gag - at least not yet. "Mine," he repeats. She manages to smile around his thrusting fingers - and then bites them. He snarls, sounding far more wolf than man, pulling his fingers free. Her teeth have left indentations around them and she licks her spit soaked lips.

                "Yours," she croons, smiling wickedly at him. "But only if you think you can keep up." She wrenches her hands free and shoves him, landing lightly on her feet as he steps back, pride and desire and shock warring for his reaction to her. "Send for Tormund," she repeats. "We need him."

  
Just like that, she's gone, leaving him hard for her, jealous and only more determined to stake his claim for all to see.


	10. Arya V

He keeps his distance, but she knows it isn't because he is angry or avoiding her. No, on the contrary, she knows exactly what he's doing. He's waiting for his moment. And she knows that when that moment comes, he'll consume her, stake his claim, take possession. She doesn't object to it. It even excites her, pleases her, warms her belly to think of being his, of being his in every possible way. Still, that doesn't mean she needs to make it easy for him to do it. Wanting it doesn't mean she doesn't need to teach him that she won't be some loyal, obedient pet. No, he needs to understand that when his moment comes, he isn't getting a bloody puppy, he's getting a godsdamned direwolf. She will not be tamed or trained, she will choose to run beside him, not walk along behind him.

  
He writes to the Lords of the North, advises Winterfell is back in the hands of Ned Stark's daughters. He mentions himself only in passing, but she knows that he will be a bigger lure than either she or Sansa. There aren't rumours of immortality spreading out from Castle Black or indeed Winterfell itself about her or Sansa after all. The Lords are summoned to Winterfell and privately, she wonders how many will turn up. The Karstark's are unlikely to send so much as a servant. But it doesn't matter in the slightest whether they try to run or escape, not in the long run. Sooner or later, the Karstark's will wake to find that the wolves have come for them, and she and Jon will have their revenge.

  
She's in the courtyards when they burn the Bolton banners, shields, and anything else left with Bolton insignia on it. When the Stark banners are unfurled, a cheer goes up from the servants. Each of them have declared loyalty to the Starks, now House Bolton has been wiped off the face of Westeros, and there's no chance of punishment from their former, sadistic master. Jon finds her on the covered walkway, puts his hands on her shoulders in greeting before he leans against the railing beside her.

                "What are you thinking, sister?" There's a vague, very quiet part of her that thinks that now they've fucked, he should stop calling her that. The other, bigger, darker part of her adores that he still calls her sister.

                "That this is the second House I've wiped out," she answers. "First the Freys, now the Boltons."

                "Do you plan any others?"

                "The Karstarks, maybe. Depending on how they react to our news."

                "Not the Lannisters?" She shrugs.

                "I have no quarrel with Tyrion Lannister, so far as I know. And with Joffrey dead - my quarrels lie with Cersei, for what she did to our father. I'm prepared to wait and see if the others concern me before I obliterate their name."

                "So sensible."

                "What have you been doing?" she asks, as much to change the subject as out of genuine interest.

                "Having your old chambers prepared for inhabitation. For two."

                "You're sleeping with me?" she asks, raising her eyebrows at him.

                "I'm not letting you out of my sight."

                "Be a talking point, that will."

                "I don't give a damn," he answers bluntly. "Let them talk. I will once more remind you that we belong together, that we stay together - and that includes you spending your nights by my side."

                "And Sansa? What will she say?"

                "I assure you, Sansa already knows. If she gave a damn, she would have already said so." She glares at him.

                "Do you mean you've told her?"

                "No. She asked me just now. I didn't lie to her. I won't do that to her. She's been lied to enough in her life, I won't insult her by continuing to lie to her." She ignores that, focusses on the point.

                "She asked you?"

                "Yes, she asked me."

                "What did she ask you exactly?" Arya snaps. Her temper is starting to rise.

                "She asked me, and I quote, 'are you sleeping with Arya?' and then went onto add 'because you look at her like you want to devour her whole' when I asked her why she thought that."

                "And did you, at any point during that conversation, stop to think that perhaps, just perhaps, whether or not to tell her should have been my decision too?" Jon matches her glare with one of his own now. Jon's anger seems to have a touchable, tastable presence in the air, the air around him seems to gather closer to him, become charged with some odd energy, grow a little darker. She imagines it will frighten lesser men. It does not frighten her.

                "Are you ashamed of us?" he asks her, his voice low, measured - a dangerous contrast to his burning eyes. "Do you regret us, what we did? Do you regret ever coming to me at Castle Black, instead of just popping on a face and coming straight here to murder Bolton all by yourself?" Her full height might not be very impressive, but she draws herself up to it anyway.

                "Don't be so stupid," she says, quietly, venomously. "I will not seek to appease your ego by denying something we both know is horseshit to start off with. Whatever you might think of me, give my intelligence more credit than that. I came to you because I wanted to be with you - but as your equal, not your pet. Do not ever make my decisions for me, Jon." She spins on her heel, walks away - throwing one final remark over her shoulder. "You can apologise to me tonight, in our chambers."

  
He doesn't follow her and she approves - looks like he might be starting to get the message. She goes up to the battlements, stares out over the unbroken snow. There's a step behind her and she swings round to come face to face with Sansa.

                "You're - up. And dressed." Sansa nods.

                "I don't plan to waste my freedom sitting inside. Aren't you cold? You don't have a cloak?" Arya shrugs.

                "It's a thick coat. And cloaks tend to get in my way." They say nothing for a while, then Sansa speaks, still staring into the distance.

                "You're different, aren't you?"

                "I don't think any of us are the same," Arya answers - which she knows is neither an answer nor what Sansa meant. "But yes. I'm different."

                "So is Jon."

                "Different differences but - yeah. He's different too."

                "You came to save me," Sansa says abruptly. "Why?"

                "What do you mean why?" Arya demands, astonishment her primary feeling.

                "There must have been a hundred more important things the pair of you could have done. More strategic things you could have done - unified the North first, dealt with the Wildling situation, gone South and sorted out Cersei Lannister - and yet you chose to, somehow, creep into Winterfell and murder Ramsey first. Why?"

                "Because we're family, you silly idiot," Arya mutters, feeling utterly out of her depth. "Because I heard you were married to him on my way to the Wall and I heard stories about him being a monster. I wasn't going to leave you in his hands whilst I pratted about doing other things - no matter how strategic." There's a pause.

                "Thank you," Sansa murmurs. "Not just for coming and killing him -"

                "Believe me, that was our pleasure," Arya mutters. Sansa manages a smile, if not a laugh.

                "But for coming for me first."

                "Like I say. Family. Remember what father used to say?"

                "Everything before the word but is rubbish?" Arya grins.

                "Yes, true."

                "He said a lot. Which bit specifically?" Sansa queries, that ghost of a smile still tugging her lips.

                "When the snows fall, and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies - but the pack survives."

                "Ah, that bit. Yes. I see now." Arya sighs, her breath misting in the air.

                "Jon and I already agree," she says in a low voice. "We stick together now. Same applies for you." Sansa shakes her head.

                "As family, yes. As my brother and my sister, yes. But you and Jon are more than that, aren't you? There's some - darkness in the pair of you."

                "Is that going to be a problem?" Arya asks.

                "I don't know," Sansa answers honestly, and Arya at least appreciates that. "I just - I don't understand, Arya. The way he looks at you, like he wants to - to swallow you, own you. Like you're his. And - and there's something strange in his eyes. It's like he isn't - like he isn't quite human."

                "That's Jon's story to tell," Arya answers. "I won't tell it for him."

                "He frightens me," Sansa admits. "And I don't want to see you hurt like I was." Arya can't help but recoil.

                "Jon is nothing like Bolton," Arya hisses at her. "Nothing like him, do you hear? Bolton was a monster. Jon isn't. And everything he does, everything we do - I assure you, I'm more than willing, Sansa. You don't need to be afraid of Jon. He would never, ever hurt you."

                "But he will hurt others."

                "And I plan to help him. Are you frightened of me too?"

                "Yes," Sansa says, openly, honestly. "Very. I saw what the two of you did to Ramsey. I don't understand how two people I grew up with can be so brutal."

                "Are you suggesting he didn't deserve it?" Arya asks bluntly.

                "He deserved all of that and more," Sansa answers, equally bluntly. "But I cannot comprehend how you two did it."

                "You said it yourself," Arya answers flatly. "We're different now. And we've both learnt to kill. That's who we are now. I know it frightens you, Sansa - do you think it doesn't frighten me? It scares the hell out of me. But this is who I am. This is what all those years alone did to me, what it made of me. This what -" she stops, collects herself, forces herself to calm down. "I was at the Twins when they killed Robb," she says, in a low, frightened voice. "I saw what they did to him, Sansa. I saw what they did to Grey Wind. There was never a time when I wasn't going to pay back what the Bolton's did. You see something like that - it changes you, Sansa. Or it did me. I learnt to fight so I could protect my family so that's what I do now. Jon - Jon understands that. Jon's suffered too. Jon's a killer too. And it does something to you, when you kill - even if the fucker who dies deserves it."

                "I can't understand. Despite what Cersei thinks, the one kill attributed to me I had nothing to do with. So I cannot understand what taking a life does."

                "I hope you never have to," Arya says, catching at Sansa's hands where they're clasped in front of her body. Even through gloves, Sansa's hands feel alarming fragile. "I honestly hope you never understand, Sansa."

                "Perhaps it's for the best," Sansa says, managing that faint smile again. "I suppose at least one of us should be reasonably normal." Arya laughs at that, the tension dissipating like their breath in the icy air.

                "Indeed. I'm sorry that burden falls to you." Sansa shakes her head.

                "No. It's only right I carry something." She takes a deep breath. "You and Jon don't frighten me," she says, quietly. "What you do frightens me, scares me beyond reason - but I am not afraid of you."

                "You don't have to see any of it," Arya says. "We won't start killing people in front of you - unless there's someone you particularly want killed in front of you. We can keep it - keep everything - between us." Sansa nods.

                "Not your love," Sansa says, so quietly Arya has to lean forward to hear her. "Don't hide that from me. It's - bizarre, to think of it, I won't lie - but I have not known love since they killed our father. If you and Jon have found it, then I want to see it. I need to see it. I need to know it's still possible to love, even with demons from a story just beyond the Wall, and with so much pain behind a person. So don't - don't hide that from me."

                "We won't," Arya promises, even though inwardly she isn't certain what Sansa means. Does she want to see them kissing? "I'll talk to him about it at least - and we won't as long as he's comfortable with it."

                "Thank you." Arya sees the shiver then.

                "Come on," she says, a little curtly. "You should get back to the fire, get warm. Need to get some padding on you before you stand on battlements having deep conversations." Sansa actually laughs at that.

                "I take it back," she giggles. "You haven't changed that much. You're still wonderfully blunt." Arya flushes.

                "Sorry. I didn't mean to sound - glib or like I was making light of it."

                "You didn't," Sansa says, patting her arm as she lets Arya lead them inside. As they descend the spiral stairs, Arya going in front in case Sansa falls, she's almost positive she hears her add a whispered "Gods, but I have missed you," and finds her throat too tight to reply.

  
All of a sudden, all she wants to do is to fall into bed beside Jon, and cling to him until she's back on surer ground. Suddenly, she is dreadfully afraid of being alone. She needs him. Hang pride - she needs him.

  
She can only hope that that pride hasn't already started driving them apart.


	11. Jon VI

He isn't even sure if she'll come to him - but she does. She comes into her own room, does not blink to see him sprawled across the bed already. She just moves around the place, unbuckling Needle to lay it on a bedside table, kicking off her boots to put them beside the fire, beside his own, draping jerkin and tunic over the back of the chair he hasn't already claimed. He watches her - sees her face set like she's steeling herself as she turns to him.

                "Tell me," he says, and his voice is quiet, a little desperate, "have I fucked up?" Her face goes from shocked to outraged and he relaxes a little, even before her lips have begun to form the denial.

                "No, you idiot," she says. She takes her breeches off, comes towards the bed he's already settled on and pokes him in the leg with a sharp finger. "Shift over," she says, and he does, letting her climb under the furs and snuggle down. She raises an eyebrow at him as he lingers above the covers, still fully dressed. "Getting in?" she asks, casually. He strips down, climbs in beside her, and she surveys him coolly, as if she's seeing right through him. Eventually, he has to speak.

                "I - there's so much - I don't feel at all rational when it comes to you," he admits. To his surprise, she laughs.

                "I don't exactly feel in control either," she points out. "Look, Jon - I've been on my own for years. I haven't had the family around to rely on and I haven't had anything but surviving to focus on. I know it's the same for you and for Sansa, but it's had an impact on me that seems different. I just - I need to feel independent, to know you and Sansa aren't going to try and force me back into the role of Lady Arya, that you don't want to keep me as some kind of obedient little wife, sat at home waiting for you to get back. That's not me, Jon, I was never going to be that."

                "I don't want you to be that!" he protests.

                "I know that," she returns. "But that doesn't mean I want to make it easy on you. I do plan to put up a fight - but I am still yours, as you are mine."

                "I see," he breathes - because suddenly he does understand. Her nature - the fiery, fierce nature he absolutely loves about her won't allow her to submit, not without a fight. If he wants her, he'll have to fight her for it. He'll have to understand her before he can have her - and that seems fine to him. "Can I start by holding you?"

                "Yes," she says, immediately sliding forward, fitting herself into his arms. Her skin feels almost painfully hot to the touch, and he can feel it now more than ever, when all that separates them is the linen of their nightshirts. "You're cold again," she remarks.

                "I don't feel it," he replies, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear and tracing the line of her jaw. "But you feel warm to me. You make me feel warm. I sleep better with you next to me. I feel better when you're near me, touching me, or if I'm touching you. You make me feel more human."

                "Do I?" she asks, with something of wonder in her tones.

                "Yes. Even knowing that I'm not anymore." He looks at her then, straight at her. "I need you," he says, his voice darkening. "I need you to stand beside me. I need to know that I'm enough for you."

                "Oh Gods - Jon, I need you too."

                "You - you do?"

                "Of course I do. You are the only one I can show everything to, the only one who sees everything I am - and loves me anyway. If Sansa saw even half of it - no. I need you, and I love you, and nothing is going to change that, no matter what happens. I just - need to fight my own battles."

                "I don't plan to stop you," he answers. "But it doesn't stop me wanting to - well, er -" he trails off.

                "Wanting to?" she prompts gently.

                "Possess you," he admits. "Wrap myself around you and never let you go, keep you close to me." There's something burning in her eyes. Her hand comes out, grabs his shirt in her closed fist as she drags him closer.

                "Start with this," she murmurs, kissing him.

  
It's a bruising, harsh kiss, and he returns it in kind, dragging her close and rolling onto his back. She breaks the kiss to sit up a little, quirk a curious eyebrow at him.

                "I want to see you," he explains. She nods.

  
She strips them both this time - and with considerably more care than he had last time. The line of purpling bruises around her collarbone stand out even in the dim firelight, and something in him thrills to see them. She might plan to resist for the sake of resistance, and he will even go along with it - but his marks are already on her. He has claimed her already, and when she runs her hand over them and smiles wickedly at him, he knows she knows it just as well as he does. She strips him naked and crawls down his chest, stops along the way to drop a kiss onto the scar over his heart. Even though he left nobody alive for her to take revenge on, he can see the desire for it burning in his eyes when she pushes his thighs apart and lies between them, staring up at him out of big, bottomless grey eyes. She takes his cock with hands and mouth, and then with one hand to leave the other free to wriggle down between her body and the sheets. Craning his head up, he realises what she's doing, that she's got her fingers buried in her own cunt and she's fucking herself whilst she licks his cock. Gods, but he cannot wait, he needs her, he needs her now. He drags her back up, positions her hips over his hard cock, wet with her spit and his own pre-come.

                "Greedy," she teases darkly, before she sinks down slowly onto him. He damn near comes, holds it off only by gripping her hips in such a way that will leave her with even more bruises. He can't bring himself to care, especially when she braces both hands on his chest - her palms feel like they are actually burning him, they're so hot - and digs her nails into his chest as she starts to move.

  
The pace she sets is torturous - slow, languid, long rolls of her hips. It's enough to bring him to the edge, but not enough to tip him over. He has his eyes closed, fighting for that peak when she wraps a surprisingly strong hand around his throat. His eyes fly open, he sees the dangerous, languid smirk as he does the challenge in her eyes - clear as day.

                "Look at you," she pants. "All spread out and at my mercy." She gives his throat one quick squeeze, just tight enough for him to feel the strength there, just tight enough to block his airway for a very brief second. White light explodes behind his eyes, he's on the absolute fucking brink - he takes her waist, flips them both so she's underneath him. He sets the pace now, fucking her harder, faster as she wraps arms and legs around him like a vice. "Tell me," she gasps into his ear as she holds him close, "tell me what you did to those Bolton soldiers you caught."

                "I hunted them down, used the wolves to herd them. There were three of them and they stank of fear," he pants, trying to maintain a pace. "I could smell it, I could taste it, it was so damn good to know that they were afraid of me. I killed two quickly - sword to the guts. Then there was one left." He gets a hand to her hair, pulls so her head is to the side, the long column of her throat exposed to his lips and teeth. He nips gently, not hard enough to mark, just hard enough that she'll feel it. Bless her but she's so responsive, gasping and squirming underneath him. "I tore his throat out with my teeth," he murmurs. Suddenly and with a wail, she goes tense beneath him, her back arching as she thrusts her hips up and there's a rush of slick wet as her peak hits and she clutches round his cock. He follows her over the edge, spends himself inside her and slumps over her, his breath coming in sharp gasps.

  
He has to pull out and roll off her eventually, but he drags her into his arms immediately, her back pressed against his chest. Her fingers trace idle patterns on his forearms while she speaks in a low, lazy voice.

                "I want to watch next time," she says idly.

                "You can," he promises. "Next one is ours."

                "What did you do with the bodies?" she asks.

                "I let the wolves have them." Privately, he thinks that this is a definition of them - that they need the violence as much as they need the intimacy. She curls up in his arms, a warm little ball against his side as she presses a kiss to his shoulder.

                "There's something I need to tell you," she murmurs. "I spoke to Sansa today."

                "About us?"

                "Among other things, yes. But mostly us."

                "What did she say?"

                "That she's frightened of what we do, but she isn't afraid of us. That she wants to see our love." He frowns at that.

                "Did she specify in what context?"

                "No, and she started shivering before I could ask. I figure she just means she needs to see us be - affectionate, I suppose." He nods.

                "Fine by me. But we need to address a certain - situation tomorrow."

                "You mean Theon," she answers, pressing a little closer to him. "Jon, have you seen him yet?"

                "No." He hadn't been able to, he'd found. Despite what Sansa said, merely thinking about seeing Theon was making his throat close with red-hot rage and his vision tinge with red anger. Even if Sansa was right about him not having killed the boys - and he was inclined to think he'd believe the boys were alive when or if he actually saw them - Theon had lead a rebellion against Ned's memory, against Robb. Greyjoy men, lead by Theon, had burnt Winterfell, the home where they had all been happy. Arya's hand strokes his chest, and he meets her eyes to see understanding there.

                "I can do it," she says softly. "If you want." He does want. But –

                "No. We do this together. And we make whatever decision we need to make together." She nods, cranes up to kiss him.

                  
He doesn't sleep that night, but he stays beside her until dawn has broken. Her body is warm in his arms, warm and solid and real. By the time she wakes, he's closer to feeling human that he has since he woke up. When she gives him a sleepy smile and kisses him gently, he knows for certain she's there to stay.

  
He genuinely believes he's untouchable - as long as she is beside him, only when she is beside him. And knowing that, knowing that for whatever mad reason she has chosen to throw her loyalty and her chances behind him, gives him the control he needs to face Theon Greyjoy.

  
The old Bolton guard they spared brings him in, and Jon sees the gentle way the guard handles some poor, thin man, who limps badly, who is trembling like a leaf as he stands in Ned's old solar. Theon is filthy, constantly twitching, wearing rags and clutching his hands together. When Jon looks at them, he can see that there are fingers missing, although because Theon is constantly winding and unwinding them, it's difficult to count how many. Swallowing hard, Jon jerks his head towards the guard.

                "You can go. We are not to be disturbed."" Theon flinches at that and Jon tries not to let himself think about why. The guard gives all three of them a worried look and goes, and Jon looks to Arya for support. She's pale, but when her hands move to the pitcher of wine, there's no tremor there. Her apparent control helps him find his own, and he takes a deep breath.

                "Theon," he says. "Sit down."

  
It's the most horrific hour of his life.


	12. Arya VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Contains content some readers may find upsetting

                "Not Theon," the shadow mutters, twitching violently. "Not Theon. Reek." She sees Jon's jaw flex and steps forward herself.

                "Theon," she says gently, as she might have spoken to Sansa, or a very sick child. "Come and sit down. By the fire, come on." Theon still doesn't move, just flinches away, seems to shrink even further into himself.

                "Theon," Jon says abruptly, leaning forward a little. "Do you know who we are?" That apparently gets through to something, because there is recognition in Theon's darting, nervous eyes now.

                "Jon," he whispers, croakily. "And Arya."

                "And are you aware that we killed Ramsey Bolton?" Arya nearly smacks him, stunned by how bluntly he broke that news - especially when she sees how Theon reacts. He goes whiter than ever, he starts to shake all over, and edges back from them both nervously.

                "No, no, no," he mutters wildly, eyes darting around. "No, this is a trick, Reek is good, Reek is loyal, the master isn't dead. No, not master, can't kill him. I don't believe them!" he suddenly cries out, looking around the room desperately. "I don't believe them!" Jon beckons her over and she wastes no time.

                "Go and get Sansa," she hisses at him. "He might listen to her - or at least believe her." He doesn't argue, and Theon barely even seems to register that he's left.

  
Once alone, she approaches Theon cautiously.

                "Theon? Theon, come on now, it's Arya. You know me." He shakes his head violently

                "No. Arya's dead. You're some - some witch, or a trickster. I don't believe her master!" It sickens her and devastates her to hear Theon call Bolton master, but she still reaches out. She grabs his hands - his poor, mutilated, twisted hands - and his eyes fly open. "You're - you're so warm," he whispers.

                "I'm real, Theon, it's really me. Who told you I was dead?" she asks, hoping to distract him.   
                "Everyone says you're dead," he answers, brow furrowed in confusion. "Everyone." She has a feeling, a vague one, that she should hate him. But it's under layers and layers of revolted pity, horror and sorrow and she thinks: _I can hate him when we fix him_.

                "They're wrong, Theon, don't you see? I'm not dead. I'm right here, and this isn't a trick. Theon, please, come and sit by the fire? Sansa's coming." His hands, previously limp and loose in her grip, now tighten on hers, almost bruising her.

                "Sansa?"

                "Yes," Arya says, nearly desperately. "Sansa's coming, and she's going to tell you that everything is OK." He - well, not relaxes, exactly, but a shade of the tension leaves his shoulders at least. "Please, Theon, come and sit down?" He follows her to the fire but doesn't sit down - or not as she meant it, anyway. He crouches, squats like some animal - but some queer instinct tells her not to push, or insist he take a chair. Instead she sits down in front of him, crossing her legs under her and laying her hands down on her knees, palms facing upwards. "Theon," she begins, very gently. "Theon, I know this is hard to believe. But everything is true - it really is me, and I really am here. And he is dead, Theon, I promise. He is never, never going to hurt you, or Sansa, or anyone else ever again. Jon and I came to stop him and we did." Theon shakes his head again - but it's a little more uncertain now, a little less adamant. She keeps talking, a little desperately. "Jon and me - we're going to protect Sansa now - and we're going to protect you too. Do you understand?" This time, she gets a very slow nod.

                "You got Sansa out?" he asks, his voice oddly muffled still.

                "Yes, Theon, we did. We killed Bolton, and we set her free. She's - here," Arya finishes as the door snicks open very quietly and Sansa slides inside, whiter than linen but looking absolutely determined. Jon is just behind her and Arya feels immediate relief at the sight of him. It isn't the time to think it, but she's starting to realise that her skin prickles when she can't see him, when he's out of her sight and reach. Perhaps they're more closely linked than either of them realised. Sansa approaches on near-silent feet, and Theon watches her, a frightened, uncertain look on his face. Sansa crouches down next to Theon, her face gentle, her own thin hands reaching for Theon's broken ones.

                "Theon," Sansa says, her voice absolutely steady and calm. Theon looks at her, a recognition on his face that's a hundred times the look Arya had managed to coax out of him. "Theon, we're free," Sansa says simply. "I've seen his body. We're free, Theon."

  
With a choked sob, Theon literally falls into Sansa's arms. Even as close as she is to the two of them, she cannot hear what Sansa whispers to him, she cannot hear what he's mumbling between his sobs. People crying always did make her uncomfortable. She never knows what to say, what to do, should she touch them? Jon's hand comes down on her shoulder and silently, he jerks his head towards the door. They slip out as quietly as they can, but she rather thinks they could storm out while dragging every bit of furniture with them and neither Theon nor Sansa would give a damn. Once in the corridor, Jon holds his arms open and she all but collapses into them, burying her head in his shoulder.

                "I can't kill him," she says. "Gods, Jon, we can't kill him. It would be like murdering a baby, or a kitten. I know he did something terrible, I know he betrayed us all, that he betrayed Father but I can't kill him. He's paid the price, even if it wasn't at our hands, he's suffered a thousand times for every hurt -"

                "You don't have to persuade me," Jon says roughly, silencing her rambling with a kiss. "I know. We won't kill him." She relaxes into his arms and feels them tighten around her.

                "I don't like not being able to see you," she admits hollowly, knowing as she says it that she's telling him the fight's already over, that it was over the second he swept her into his arms in the courtyard at Castle Black. "I feel like I'm crawling out of my skin."

                "I know," he says again. "How d'you think I feel about you? I need you too." They stay like that a long time, locked together. They're still standing there when the door opens again and Sansa comes out. She doesn't even blink at seeing the two of them wrapped in each others arms as lovers would be, just smiles wearily.

                "He needs a bath, food and sleep," she says quietly. "I think it's best if he sleeps with me." Nobody argues it.

                "I'll find a servant, get the bath sent into your room," Jon says. "And I'll get some food organised."

                "I'll see if I can find him something clean to wear," Arya volunteers, glad to be able to do something. "Then have those rags he's got on burnt." Sansa nods, and as she looks between them Arya notices that there are tears in her eyes.

                "Thank you," she whispers. "For - for giving him a chance."

  
In the end, the best she can find are some shirts in a chest in her own room. They've been crumpled up, and they smell a little musty, but as she pulls them out, something hits her square in the chest. These shirts were Robb's once, and the realisation that somehow, impossibly, they have survived everything Winterfell has gone through nearly strangles her with it's suddenness. She pulls them all out, telling herself it's to let them air, and not to bury her face in the folds and convince herself she can still smell Robb on them somehow. She picks out the one that seems in the best shape and hangs it carefully over her arm to take it to the old Lord's chambers. She has the sense to knock, and Sansa answers. Arya offers out the shirt.

                "It's - it's all I could come up with," she says,her voice slightly rough. "I - I think it was Robb's." Sansa's eyes widen as she takes it, running her fingers over the collar and the white embroidery there.

                "It was," her sister murmurs. "I remember doing this embroidery. Oh, Arya." Arya has to swallow hard before she can answer.

                "I - I figured Robb wouldn't - wouldn't mind, you know. I couldn't find any breeches or leggings though so I - these are mine, but he's so skinny now - they'll be a bit short but -"

                "Arya," Sansa says, laying a gentle hand on her arm. "Thank you." Arya nods stiffly. "Has the bath and everything arrived?"

                "Yes. He's just eating first."

                "Good. Er - yes, good. Do you know where Jon is?"

                "The Maester came to get him, there was a raven from Castle Black. He said he was going to Father's old solar again." Arya nods, already backing away.

                "Great. Thanks. If you two need anything else - will you tell me?"

                "Of course," Sansa says, patting her arm a little awkwardly. "Thank you, Arya."

  
She retreats a little uncertainly, goes back to the solar to find Jon frowning a letter.   
"What is it?" she asks. He looks up, holding out an arm to her at once. She goes into it, lets him pull her into his lap and wind his arms around her waist to hold her tight. She leans into the embrace happily, presses a kiss to his cheek before resting her head against his shoulder. He picks up the note and waves it.

                "Davos is leaving Castle Black tomorrow and will be here before the moon wanes," he explains. "He's bringing a handful of Wildlings too."

                "Good. We need as many allies as we can get."

                "For the Long Night?" he asks, stroking her leg absently.

                "That too," she answers. "But the enemies to the North aren't our only concern. We also have enemies to the South - sooner or later Cersei Lannister will hear about us reclaiming Winterfell and I very much doubt she'll be happy about it -" Jon shrugs, and she gives a mumbled half-protest as it disturbs her head.

                "Sorry. Who gives a damn? The North cannot be invaded, even if she does get an army past the Neck they'll never be able to stage a battle. They'd freeze or starve or fall to the hundreds of ambushes we could set up along the Kingsroad for them. The North can't be held, not by an outsider - that's well-known and acknowledged. There's a good reason why the Stark name is so old - we were here before the Lannisters, before the Targaryens, before anyone else, there were Starks and Starks held the North, as Kings or Wardens. Now we have returned, and Starks will be rulers again. If Cersei Lannister objects, she is most welcome to."

                "We shouldn't underestimate her," Arya murmurs, still resting her head in the crook of his shoulder. "Even if she can't send an army after us -" She trails off.

                "I know, and we won't. But with the Night King to deal with - let's just say she isn't a priority."

                "She is to me. That bitch has been on my list a long time, Jon."

                "I never asked," he says lightly. "Who else is on this little list of yours?"

                "Most of them are dead, and it changes from time to time," she says. "Cersei Lannister, Ilyn Payne, the Mountain, Beric Dondarrion and Thoros of Myr." Jon chuckles, the sound dark and liquid and warming right down to her bones.

                "You have high ambitions, little sister. Who else was on it?"

                "Joffrey, only someone got there first. Meryn Trant, and I killed him in Braavos. Polliver, for killing Lommy and taking Needle from me. Rorge, for threatening to rape me. Walder Frey and his sons, for Robb and Mother, and I got them at the Twins. Tywin Lannister, because he planned what happened to Robb and Mother - I heard tell Tyrion killed him, so really I suppose I should stand the man a drink sometime. The Boltons, for being traitorous fucking scum. And then - the Hound, Sandor Clegane. I took him off the list, see - because he was kind to me, because he helped me, because he was dying anyway. And the Red Woman." Jon stiffens at the sound of that one, she feels the tension pass through him.

                "You took her off it?" he asks, his voice gravelly.

                "Yes."

                "Why?"

                "Because it's thanks to her that I'm sitting here with you now. If she hadn't saved you - well, whether she killed Gendry or not, she still would have deserved to fucking die. But she gave me you." His hand tightens on her thigh briefly.

                "We'll cross every damn name off your list," he promises, his voice dark. It sends a shudder through her belly, wakens a need in her core she knows that can only be sated by one thing - "I'll live for the days when I watch you kill them all." She raises her head, searches his face. She sees the honesty and kisses him for it, recognising it as a promise. It's how Sansa finds them, kissing almost desperately, bordering on violence as he bites her lips and holds her head still with a possessive hand knotted in her hair so he can plunder her mouth at will. Sansa blinks a bit as they spring apart and Arya feels the blush starting on her cheeks. She expects this to be too much for Sansa, despite what she had said, that such obvious evidence of whatever dark and sin-soaked peace she and Jon have found will be too much for her to handle. She all but holds her breath while Sansa stares at them both, feels Jon's hands flex on her waist as he clears his throat.

                "Everything alright, Sansa?" His voice is measured, controlled.

                "Theon's sleeping," Sansa answers, her own voice surprisingly level. Arya is torn between wild laughter and a hysterical scream. It's only Jon's hands on her that keep her from doing either.

"But I need to speak to you both. Preferably immediately." Jon's hands tighten briefly, before he nudges Arya gently.

                "Up you get, my love," he says, smiling at her. "What do you need?" he asks Sansa as she obeys him, sliding off his lap and boosting herself onto the desk. Sansa crosses to them and drops down into the nearest vacant chair and looks between them both with a calm, open expression that reflects no judgement whatsoever.

                "I know you've sent for the Lords," she says without preamble. "And I want to know where we all stand." Arya frowns at her.

                "We're family," she says bluntly. "That's where we stand, surely? Or do you mean who is Robb's heir now? Because I won't talk in riddles." Sansa sighs.

                "Yes, that is what I meant. I was trying to be diplomatic."

                "I think we all know I don't have a claim," Arya says, grinning at Sansa to show she isn't starting an argument. "Not only am I younger than the both of you, I'm also not exactly Lady of the Keep material. I was hardly ever going to be but - I've done too much now. I've seen too much. I won't chain myself up like that, not unless there was absolutely no other option."

                "As far as we know," Jon says bluntly, staring at Sansa, "you two are the only living children of your parents, and you are the eldest. Meaning that Winterfell is yours, as the Lady of Winterfell."

                "You're father's son," Sansa says, levelly. "And you're the older." Jon is shaking his head.

                "I don't want to rule. When I sent for the Lords, it was you I named - the both of you. If they come, it won't be for me. And I very much doubt they will be happy following me once certain things come to light."

                "Do you mean the nature of your relationship?" Sansa asks them both bluntly.

                "I don't intend to hide it," Jon says. His voice is still very level but there's a warning note to it. "But that wasn't all I meant. There's still something you need to know."

                "You'd better tell me then."

                "I died," Jon says, and Arya feels her belly twist at the thought of Jon dying. As if he knows it, Jon puts a steady hand on her calf, exerting slight pressure.

                "You _died_?"

                "My men stabbed me five times in the chest for allowing the Wildlings to cross the Wall to escape the Night King and the White Walkers. I died - and then a Red Priestess used some witchcraft to drag me back out of the void. But I came back wrong, I brought some of the darkness back with me. The Watch called me a monster for it, there are those among the Lords who will call me the same. None of them will follow me once that becomes known, as I suspect it already is. Winterfell is yours, Sansa."

                "Does that mean you and Arya plan to leave?"

                "Not unless you want us to."

                "No, I do not."

                "There are still things Jon and I plan to do," Arya says, refusing to make half-truthful promises. "There are still people who have wronged us, wronged me, people who have to pay the price for that. I won't sit in a Hall and play the game of thrones with a bunch of lying schemers. That isn't who I am. If someone has to die, if someone has hurt you - point me in the direction and I'll see they pay their debts. I will not be used or traded to strengthen alliances, I will make nobody an advantageous little wife. I will not be Lady Arya Stark - and I need you both to understand that."

                "We do," Sansa says immediately. "And if I am to rule now, then you have my word that I will not make you play that role. But when you say there are people who have wronged you -"

                "I mean that there are people I intend to kill - people that cannot be killed while I sit around here and wait for events to unfold around me. If I have the chance at one of them, I will take it, even if it means leaving. And you need to understand that too." Sansa nods slowly.            

                "I don't understand it - but I accept it."

                "Good." Arya feels caged, trapped, even with Sansa assuring her that she will not be. She can't shake off that her homecoming will spell an end to her independence - that she'll be forced back into a dress and onto a chair with some embroidery. The pressure on her leg increases and she yanks herself out of her spiral to look at Jon.

                "Nobody is marrying you unless it's me," he says, his voice darkly threatening. Sansa jerks in her seat at that.

                "You can't mean -" she starts, before Jon interrupts.

                "If I want to marry her, I'd like to meet the cunt who thinks they could stop me," he says smoothly. Sansa gapes at him but Arya speaks before she can.

                "Excuse me," she says, almost coldly, "but did I not just say that I won't be used as a wife? I do not intend to marry anyone. End of conversation."

                "Arya -"

                "Shut the fuck up, Jon. I don't need you to posture over me." His eyes go dark with anger and she contemplates shutting up.

                  
Contemplates but doesn't. Doesn't because there's an itch under her skin, a restless energy she needs to be rid of, to burn off somehow, and in the absence of anyone to kill she wants Jon violent, dark, demanding. She wants a fight.

                "I can fight my own fucking battles," she hisses, all but forgetting Sansa's there.

                "I'm fully aware of that," he snaps back. "You've made that abundantly clear."

                "Then get it through your head and stop fucking posing!" Sansa jumps up, mutters something - and leaves. She doubts he even notices. She barely does.

                "What's your goddamn problem?" he demands, standing. He comes over to her, his hands gripping her knees to force them apart. She fists her hands in his jerkin, drags him closer.

                "My problem is you just assuming shit about me."

                "Do I assume when I fuck you?" he asks. His hands leave her knees. His voice has gone dark. "When my cock's buried in your pretty little cunt, am I assuming then?" His hand comes up to wrap around her throat. Under her collar, she feels the bruises ache where he presses them. "Did I assume when I marked you up? Showed the entire godsdamned world who you belong to?" Her hand whips out, slaps him hard enough to leave a red print on his cheek. His head snaps to one side, and when he faces her again, his eyes are pupil-less, deep obsidian. She closes her hands into his jerkin, gathering it into her fists and ripping. She drags him close, until she can feel breath that isn't her own on her lips.

                "I do not belong to you," she hisses. She kisses him, demanding, firm, passionate, bites his bottom lip hard enough to break the skin. She tastes his blood before she pulls back. "You belong to _me_ ," she whispers. She unclenches one hand, touches her fingertips to the smear of blood on his lips. "Blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh, heart of my heart."

                "Sweet sister," he answers, sliding his hands into her hair, gently until his fists tighten and he yanks her head back sharply. "Is it blood you want?"

                "Yes," she gasps, her neck craned back so much all she can see is the ceiling. It _hurts_. It frees her.

                "Then you'll have it," he promises.

  
When he sinks his teeth into her neck, she screams.


	13. Jon VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter contains supernatural encounters between characters and demonic figures

He knows what she's doing. In the absence of a kill, she wants violence, roughness, to fight and be fought. She fights him for dominance as he fights her, and by the time he gets her on all fours, her nails have opened bloody wounds on his chest, her lip is bleeding where he's slapped her. He drives himself inside her dripping cunt and grunts like an animal as he fucks her ruthlessly. She howls like the wolves do, and he has the vague notion that if Sansa is still awake, she'll hear them. He doesn't care just now, because his entire world has shrunk down to Arya and Arya's cunt around his cock.

  
The longer he spends inside her, the easier he feels in his own skin. But it's not quite enough, so he turns her onto her back, pushes her knees up to her chest and re-enters her. She's so tight like this, and so hot it's burning him, and he doesn't give a damn if he burns up entirely. He'd gladly go like this.

  
She isn't content, however, because suddenly he finds himself pushed away, only for her to mount him, to be atop him with her hands around his throat and squeezing his neck so tightly he can't breathe. Her eyes are on fire, burning, burning, burning, white-hot with lust and rage and violent, deadly intent.

                "You want me?" she gasps out. "You want me like this, don't you? Violent and holding your life in my hands like this." She tightens her grip on his throat, her face contorting with pleasure as his vision starts to swim. He could rip her hands away in a second. He never even tries, his hands stay on her hips as she fucks herself on his cock. His throat will bruise.

                "Yes," he gasps out. She laughs, a broken laugh that becomes a moan as he feels her cunt flutter around him. Suddenly her hands are gone from his throat and he sucks in blinding gulps of air as she smiles at him.

                "Pretty," she croons, stroking his neck gently. "You're going to look so pretty, all bruised and hurt by my hand." She leans back to brace her hands on his thighs. "Touch me, Jon. Make me come." He obeys it, fumbling with hands he thinks have gone numb, finds her clit and pinches hard. She screams aloud, her back arching as her cunt tightens dramatically. He alternates strokes, pinches, caresses until she's coming round his cock with desperation that he cannot help but match as he joins her in her orgasm, spending himself inside her heat.

  
They lie naked and gasping on the floor until she stirs, rolling away from him and starting to dress.

                "Where are you going?" he demands, but is not at all surprised not to receive an answer. She finishes dressing, buckles Needle back into place, and leaves the room. He groans aloud, scrubs his hands over his face. There are so many bloody layers to her, layer after layer of complication, of fierce independence yet a desperate need for physical comfort and closeness, the mixture of her acknowledged need for him and her stony denial of needing him at all baffles him yet intrigues him. He thinks he understands though - Arya has been alone since she was a child. She's been a hostage, a prisoner, an assassin's apprentice. She'd seen the aftermath of the Red Wedding as a child. She's learnt to survive at all costs. It has been years since she trusted. He cannot be surprised that she struggles to trust now.

  
He does not go after her. Instead, he summons the Maester and several servants, tells them of the expectation of guests, and orders them to ready chambers. Finally, he sends more ravens. He informs every great house in the Kingdoms that the Stark girls have retaken the North with his help, that the Bolton line is gone. He announces it coldly, with no leaning towards the dramatic, just that he and Arya killed Bolton for his abuses of their sister, and his illegal occupation of Winterfell. Let Cersei Lannister send an army after him if she likes. He's untouchable now.

  
By nightfall, there is still no sign at all of Arya. Nobody has seen her, none of the servants, not Sansa - who can't quite meet his eye - nobody. He curses up a storm, but it neither makes him feel better nor helps him find her. He searches personally, knowing she's more than capable of hiding from anyone else. He doesn't find her, but he does establish that both their wolves are also missing. It makes him feel a little bit better he supposes - at least she isn't alone, wherever she is. He knows for sure that he won't sleep without her, probably wouldn't have slept with her, but he goes to their chambers regardless.

  
There's no trace of her having been in there, all of her clothes are still there and there's no sign she's taken anything but what she had on. He crosses to the window, looks out over the castle walls and towards the Wolfswood - and suddenly, with a tight smile, he thinks he knows where she has gone. He knocks gently at Sansa's door and when she answers, looking worried, he tells her he's going out to look for Arya. She nods, still avoiding his eyes, and he leaves the castle too. None of the few guards they've scratched up attempt to stop him, or even query him, and he slips away over the snow to the woods. She's left no footprints, she's too good a hunter for that, and he is certain she is hunting. He isn't sure what she's hunting, but he knows she's gone hunting.

  
It's the animals that give it away. Dead winter rabbits, dead birds. Neat kills, and not the work of the wolves. He just has to follow the blood. Suddenly, he can hear voices, and he slows, starting to duck behind trees as he creeps forward. Far ahead, a fire has been lit, a small campfire that could be anyone. But he knows it is her. Sound travels far in the snow-shrouded woods, without wind to stir the leaves and without twigs to snap under the paws of predators. The voices are getting clearer as he gets closer to the fire and he is close enough now to see figures.

  
They are not human, and in the centre, very close to the flames, Arya is sitting with her legs crossed and her back straight. He stills entirely, does not even breathe. This is something ancient, some dark and unknown magic, and he dare not interrupt - even though the sight of his sister surrounded by black-robed spectres, hooded and cowled so their faces are hidden, rouses every protective instinct he possesses. He loosens his sword. If they attempt to touch her, he will go in there.

                "- great danger to you, Princess."

                "War must come, and you must lead. The Gods have named you."

                "The Gods have never spoken to me, they have never favoured me. Why should I trust them now?"   
                "High Heart saw it. The Priestess has seen it. The Queen has seen it."    

                "Cersei Lannister -"

                "Is not Queen. The Queen is yet to come to your shores, little wolf, little Princess of Death. Fire and Ice must be united and you and Jon Snow must unite them."

                "How?"

                "We cannot say." Jon wants to reveal himself, to ask his own questions. He cannot move. He knows that these cloaked and shadowed creatures are of the void he was born from. He senses it, knows it, can smell it and taste it. "You must find your own answers, Princess of Death."

                "Stop calling me that," Arya snaps and he wants to scream out to her not to be stupid, not to anger these spirits of another realm.

                "But it is your name, Princess. At least, it shall be. You have not become it yet, but soon you shall."

  
                "How?" Arya demands, frustration clear in her tones.    

                "You will bring death before the end. You must fight when the time comes -"

                "I was always going to fight!"

                "You must fight regardless of the circumstances. It is you who must strike the final blow of this war - no matter what it might cost you."

                "What does that mean?"

                "Hidden from humans. Hidden from you. Hidden from the son of the darkness."

                "Jon -"

                "Must stay by your side, little Princess. No matter what terrors may come, he must be with you, or all is lost, all shall perish."

                "If you have nothing helpful or new to tell me, I'm leaving," Arya says, jumping to her feet. Jon nearly screams when the cloaked things rise with her, seemingly growing before his eyes. They surround her at once, a strange wind blowing up to storm through the trees with a howl and a shriek that sounds nothing short of demonic. He cries out, his strange silence broken by the threat to her, leaps out from behind his tree with his sword drawn - but two of the figures, or perhaps they are two more figures, he does not know - are beside and before him. Long-fingered hands are teaching out from the sleeves of their robes, and he nearly cries out in fear when he sees them. The flesh that covers them is black with rot, maggots are crawling around visible bones, tendons, muscle. The hands are on him, colder than frozen steel, piercing through the layers he wears to burn his flesh. He drops his sword as he struggles to get free. Somewhere, though, Arya is screaming. The sound is a long, continuous shriek of primal agony and he cannot ignore it. He fights like a wild thing against the inexplicably strong grip of the dead spectres gripping him.

                "Let me go! Arya! Arya!" he bellows. He receives no response from her, but her screams are continuing. A hiss is audible from the demons still holding him. A cold wash over his neck betrays one of them is leaning in. A rotted hand wraps around his throat, forcing his head back, back, back. The hooded face of a spectre looms up behind him.

                "She is not harmed, Jon Snow. Cease your struggle, and we will take you to her."

                "She's screaming! Let her go!"

                "She is not screaming, Jon Snow, not yet. The sound you hear is not from this time. The Princess is not harmed, we will not harm someone who means so much to you. But we must help her become strong."

                "Let me go!" Deep within the cowl, he sees eyes glowing at him, dark, dark eyes.

                "Look at her," the spectre orders, forcing his head back down. The thing in front of him has gone or stepped aside and he sees Arya standing in the centre of a semi-circle of them, not screaming, not dead - but naked in the snow. Her eyes are closed, her skin the same colour as the snow she stands upon, but she neither shivers nor cries out. If he could not see her breathing, he would think her dead. He struggles.

                "She'll freeze -"

                "She will be unharmed. Watch her." With the hands on him, he has no choice, he must watch her. She seems to be glowing, untouched by the still-screaming wind - not even a hair on her head stirs. The glowing is intensifying, some white-blue glow that starts in her chest and spreads out over her until the clearing is illuminated by it. "And so she is made like you," the spectre whispers. He blinks, just blinks, and everything in the clearing is gone, the fire, the demons, the unearthly wind, the white glow - and Arya. She is gone too.

  
He staggers with the shock of it, lurching forward to where she stood, staring around wildly.

                "Arya!" he bellows. "Arya!" From somewhere to his left, a bush rustles and he turns, drawing his sword - although he remembers dropping it, he knows he dropped it when the demons had touched him. Ghost and Nymeria trot into the clearing, both whining in fear and distress - and behind them, staggering like she's drunk too much ale, comes Arya, whiter than a corpse. He has her in his arms at once, clutching her tight even as his heart races. Had it been real? Some vision? But she's lifting grey eyes to his face and he knows it was real.

  
When she speaks, her voice is darkly beautiful, some richer version of her own, power shimmering in every syllable.

                "They called to me," she says. "I heard them calling me at once."

                "Are you hurt?" he demands, framing her face in his hands. "Did they hurt you?"

                "No. They did not come to harm me." Her smile is too dangerous, too wild to be anything but beautiful. "They came to give me a gift."

                "A gift?" he gasps. He can still feel the power of them lingering in the air. "What gift?"

                "Why, the gift of knowledge. I see it all, Jon. I see everyone I want to kill. I see everyone who I will be the end of, I see everyone I will give to the Stranger and his kin. I see the chaos I will bring." Something is blocking his throat, making it impossible to breathe or speak, paralysing him in place. "I will end lines and wipe out Houses, I will be the sword in the darkened room that waits for so many men. They will whisper my name for fear of saying it aloud, they will tremble to think of me - of us." She comes up on her toes to kiss his lips, hard, demanding. "We will be spoken of forever."

  
He cannot remember how he gets her home, he thinks he must have carried her. He gets her into bed, heaping furs on her as he remembers how she stood naked in the snow with nothing even on her feet. Even though she feels as warm as ever, he fears. He wraps her up in his arms and doesn't let her go all night, just holds her close and watches her face all night. Sleep evades him and so his watch over her begins, as the waning moon tracks slowly over clear skies and the wind moans low and melancholy around the walls of Winterfell. What had those things been? Had they been in the darkness with him? Is that what waited for him, for them all once death came to claim them?

  
Morning comes and still he has no answers - and still Arya sleeps on. He stands a long time, watching her, but her breathing is even and deep, her skin flushed with enough pink to be healthy, her pulse strong under his fingers. Perhaps this is simply what she needs. He leaves her to it, in the end, because all staying here will achieve is him tying himself up in knots - and there is something that requires his attention, no matter that he'd rather stab himself than do it.

  
Sansa and Theon are awake, both of them, curled in front of the fire in Ned's old solar when Jon runs them to earth. A platter of food sits half-eaten before them but they both seem content. Jon's eyes slide to the floor where he fucked Arya the night before, wonders if they know. Sansa looks up at him when he enters and he hates the flash of uncertainty he sees before she drops her gaze and speaks.

                "You don't mind us being here? Only, it's the only room where Ramsey didn't - didn't -" She trails off but she needs not finish. Jon can fill in the blanks for himself. _It's the only place Ramsey didn't torture us._

                "This is your home," he says, roughly. "You can be wherever you feel the most comfortable. That applies to you both. I can take another room as my study." Perhaps he'll take Ramsey's old bedchamber. He has such happy memories of that room.

  
Arya's face had been so beautiful covered in blood, with that euphoria in her eyes –

  
He stops, swallows, grabs the thought before it can grow out of his control.

                "I wanted to talk to you - about last night," he tells Sansa. Theon twitches, trying to make himself smaller while edging towards the edge of the rug - presumably heading for the door. He's clean, at least, but somehow he looks worse for it. Thinner than Sansa, scarred more than Sansa, hair still too long, beard still on his cheeks. Sansa reaches out, grabs Theon's hand, pulls him back to her.

                "Theon heard you last night too," she says, her voice shaking a little. "I explained as best as I could but - he needs to hear this too." Jon nods at once, although the feeling of awkwardness intensifies. What the hell must Theon have thought?

                "Fine. Yes, I mean, of course. We - didn't mean to frighten you." Sansa takes a deep breath, Jon almost sees her gather her courage before she speaks.

                "Well, you did. And where is she?"

                "Asleep," Jon answers. He doesn't explain what happened in the woods, it's too delicate somehow, too private, too strange. "Everything Arya and I do - I know it seems strange, I know it seems frightening. But everything we do - we consent. I don't -" He stops before he can say I don't hurt her because that would be a straight out lie because he does hurt her, as she hurts him and he does not want to lie to either of them. "I do nothing to her she doesn't want - and she does nothing to me that I don't want," he adds, his hand going almost unconsciously to his neck to rub the bruises she left. Sansa's eyes widen as she sees it, and he curses internally, dropping his hand to tug his collar up.

                "Arya did that?" Sansa whispers.

                "Yes."   
                "And you - you wanted it?"

                "Yes."

                "I - I can't do this," Sansa murmurs. She turns away, turns her head. "I thought I could. I thought I could accept it - but I - Jon, what do you think Father would say if he could see this? See you? See you lying with your own sister?" That cuts deep, deeper than Jon thought it might.

                "He would hate me," he answers honestly. He keeps looking at her, even though she has turned away from him. "He would hate me, abhor what we do. If you would prefer that I kept my distance from you, or if you wish me to leave the castle, you have the right as Lady of Winterfell to do it and I will understand. But I'll take her with me. I won't be parted from her. And I will not apologise for loving her."

                "I don't want either of you to leave. You're still family, even if you're -" She doesn't need to say the word monsters for him to hear it. "You're still family," she repeats. "And I'm not fit enough yet to run this place. There's the war coming too, I know that. But I can't - see it any more. And Theon can't either. If you and Arya want or - or need to hurt each other, then fine. But keep it to yourselves. I don't want to see it. I don't want to hear it. I don't want the two of you showing up beaten and bruised. I don't want to hear about it. And if the two of you need to kill - then kill. But do not do it in my name." Jon nods.

                "Very well," he says, his voice tight. "But you must be the one to tell Arya, because she will not have it from me."

                "She already has."

  
The voice is quiet, deadly, angry. She's standing in the corner of the room, having obviously heard everything. Even he can feel the power crackling around her.

  
Not even he understands what she might have become.

 


	14. Arya VII

She cannot stand there and pretend Sansa's words haven't cut her to the bone. She'd almost managed to convince herself that her sister truly accepted them both - but even under her hurt anger, she has to admit she is not surprised by Sansa's rejection.

  
They asked too much of her, she and Jon. They came back out of the darkness after years away, brutally murdered a man and expected Sansa simply to accept it. They both asked for far too much.

  
She takes a deep breath and holds out her hand.

                "Jon," she says. He stares at her. "Step aside." He does so and Arya crosses the room to Sansa - and draws Needle. "You either need to stand up, or sit in a chair. Do you remember how to receive an oath of service?" Sansa blinks, startled.

                "I - I remember. But I -"

                "Stand up, then." Sansa stands, and Arya kneels, balances Needle on her upturned palms. "I can't be your sister," she says bluntly. "I've changed too much. I've seen too much, done too much. We can't all go back to being family, and it was stupid of all of us to try. But I can do this. I will shield your back and keep your counsel, and give my life for yours if need be. I swear it by the old gods and the new." For a brief moment, there's silence, then Sansa speaks.

                "And I vow that you will always have a place by my hearth and meat and mead at my table. I pledge to ask no service of you that may bring you dishonour. I swear it by the old gods and the new." Arya stands up, sheathes her sword.

                "Shouldn't we talk -" Jon starts.

                "No. There's nothing to say that hasn't already been said. We can't go back to playing at happy families. We've all changed far too much, we've been apart for far too long. We're still family - but we're not the family we were. So I'll do what I do best, and I'll be a fighter. I'll protect you and Theon for as long as you need me to and I will do whatever is necessary to do that," she continues, addressing Sansa directly now. "I'm yours to command now. But I'm his too," she says, gesturing at Jon. "He gives me what I need, what I want - be it bruises or love. So if he goes, I go." Sansa nods.

                "Fine. I can accept that, even if it breaks my heart to accept that it means we can't go back to the family we were." Arya nods stiffly.

                "Then excuse me. There's something I need to attend to." She takes Jon's hand and pulls him out of the room. They don't get far, because he starts leading her after a short time, pulling her along behind him. He leads her up to the top of the old tower, a tower Bran fell from in another life. He circles the room restlessly, not speaking, barely blinking.

  
She doesn't interrupt him as she might have once. Whatever had happened in those woods last night - and she only has vague, blurred memories of a figure in a black cowl calling her Princess of Death and a strange sense of certainty that she was in exactly the right place - it has left some peace in her heart, some calm stillness that means she can wait forever if necessary. Patience, never her forte, has settled like a pair of old boots onto her - comfortable, broken to fit perfectly.

  
His move towards her is sudden, unsignalled. His hands frame her face and tilt her head up to his so he can stare right into her eyes and the depth of them takes her breath away to leave her gasping.

                "Did you mean it?" he asks, his voice almost hoarse with some emotion she can't name.

                "Mean what?"

                "That you're mine." She lets her hands close around his wrists, but it's not to start a fight this time. It's just to hold him, to have that contact there, his pulse thrumming under her fingertips.

                "Yes. Until the end of my days, Jon, I'm yours." He kisses her, but it's not the fight their other kisses have been. It's a lover's kiss, tender, sweet, it tastes of love and sweetness instead of blood and fury, it warms her from the core outwards.

  
They stay there a long time, in this draughty old tower, just kissing, hands sliding into hair to stroke not pull, whispering to each other sometimes. When they do separate she feels almost drunk, light-headed and dizzy with tender desire that is not so urgent she feels the need to start pulling his clothes off. There's an old lantern on the floor up here, miraculously still oiled, and Jon fumbles around with old stones until he persuades the thing to light. They set it up on the windowsill and sit beneath it, watching the tiny flickering flame casting shadows around as they curl together and say nothing to each other. His fingers work her hair loose from its tie, comb gently through the strands, massage her scalp so gently it sets her to purring before too long. He turns her boneless with sleepy satisfaction, turns her to a sated kitten without ever taking off a single stitch of clothing and it staggers her. She never knew such sweetness before, never knew that she could get such pleasure without a man between her thighs and yet she's shaking with it.

                "Arya," he whispers after a long time, "do you want me to -" She says yes even though he never actually explicitly asks, because he's reduced her to such a state of peace she'd say yes if his question was _can I throw you out of that window_?

                  
He lays his cloak down as a rug for her, so the fur at the collar cushions her head and she turns her face a little to rub her cheek against it, smell that curious scent of soap and sweetness that is Jon. He lays her down, strips her slowly and strokes every inch of her until she's shaking. By the time his mouth finds her core she's half-sobbing with it, but he takes his time here too, uses lips and tongue languorously, as if he has all the time in the world to do this, as if he plans to spend the rest of his life with his face in her cunt, just learning what makes her tremble.

  
When her orgasm hits, it almost takes her by surprise because the usual desperate build-build-build-there was missing. It washes over her like a cool breeze on a hot morning, curls her toes and clenches her belly and makes her sob out his name with tears clinging to her cheeks. He comes to her naked, slots himself between her legs and kisses away the dampness clinging to her lashes without ever asking if she's alright. She's glad he doesn't because she isn't sure how she'd explain. He thrusts inside her slow and smooth, fills her up as she brings her knees up and cradles his waist with her legs, keeping him so close all he can do is rock back and forth gently, his kisses a tender promise as he loves her.

                "My perfect girl," he whispers. "My beautiful, brave sister, will you come for me?" And it's all it takes, as if she was waiting for that exact question, as she comes again and cries out, her eyes squeezing closed as he pushes forward one last time, pushes forward and groans as she feels warmth fill her up. He rests his head on her shoulder and she wraps arms and legs around him to keep him there because the weight of him on her feels good, feels right, makes her feel safe.

  
It can't last. The peace is disturbed after he's rolled off her to lie beside her, face to face and naked in each other's arms. She's stroking his face lazily, mapping out the bow of his lips and the curve of his eyebrow, the line where beard meets bare skin on his cheeks, stroking through his beard to hear him sigh in pleasure. She's contemplating seeing about another round when running footsteps reach her ears and someone bursts in on them. Jon starts up, grabs her discarded shirt to cover her with but she doesn't much care, she's too sated and too sleepy to give a damn about her nakedness. The serving girl blushes redder than Sansa's hair as she starts stammering out apologies.

                "Oh! My Lord - I did not - I am so sorry -"

                "What do you want?" Jon barks, obviously growing angry.

                "There's a woman at the gates, a lady knight - Lady Sansa bid me fetch you -"

                "Alright, alright, get out. We'll be there." The girl flees at once, and Jon groans. She stirs herself, uncoils lazy legs to stand and join him, wrapping her arms around his waist to press her breasts against his back. "Arya -" he groans.

                "We should get dressed," she murmurs.

                "I know."

                  
They dress and she totters downstairs on legs that are still slightly unsteady. Sansa is in the Great Hall, sitting up straight at the High Table, dressed as a Lady. In front of her is a woman - a woman who is not the stranger Arya has been expecting. She tightens her hand around Needle automatically, the last vestiges of pleasure-induced haze clearing rapidly from her mind. But even as she steps forward, Sansa is holding up a hand, shaking her head.

                "There's no need for that, Arya. This is -"

                "I know who this is," Arya says, even as the woman whirls around with surprise and shock on her face at the sight of Arya.

                "You're - you survived," Brienne of Tarth gasps, staring like Arya's a ghost.

                "I did." Brienne composes herself, composes away her shock - Arya sees it get packed away for another time - and turns back to Sansa.

                "I came as soon as I saw the light in the tower window, my Lady, as I promised you - but I do not find what I expected."

                "No," Sansa says, her voice steady. "My brother and sister - they came three days since, and they were responsible for the death of Ramsey Bolton and gave me back my freedom." Brienne bows her head, nods swiftly.

                "Then I am grateful to them. I made your Lady Mother a promise that I would keep you both safe - I have failed on it but I am relieved to see that someone succeeded where I did not. I offered you my sword once, my Lady, and I offer it again - even though you may have no further need of it."

                "I was naive enough to reject your help once, Lady Brienne. I shall not be so naive again. I accept your service and your sword. And I have need to a protector - because I have a task for my brother and sister, should they wish to accept it." Arya steps forward at once, eager, instinct telling her this is a chance to avenge herself on someone on Sansa's behalf. The light in her sister's eyes, a dark light, a light that promises fury - it tells her that whatever this task is, it is to be enjoyed.

                "Tell me," she says, eager. She can feel Jon behind her, feel his own interest rolling off him.

                "I want you to track down Petyr Baelish," Sansa says, her face hard. "I want you to find him, bring him back here, and I want him to answer to me. He sold me to the Bolton's - and I want to know why. Bring him back to me alive - and then you can do as you will with him."


	15. Jon VIII

He and Arya set out to find Baelish the next morning. Neither of them anticipate it being difficult in the slightest, but even so Arya is fairly buzzing with excitement. He understands it - the same tension is fizzing under his own skin, his heart beating a little faster and his fingers dancing restlessly over the reins of his horse.

  
They even know where Baelish is, it can't even be called a hunt. He's Lord Protector of the Vale or some such shit, thanks to marrying Sansa and Arya's Aunt Lysa. And thanks to Jon sending letters to every major House about the Stark sister's reclaiming their ancestral home - well, Jon has no doubt that Baelish will right now be riding hell for leather for Winterfell. Sansa has not explicitly said why she wants Baelish - beyond her comments about him handing her to the Boltons - and neither Jon nor Arya had been able to extract any further information from her. She simply repeated her instructions that Baelish was to be brought to her alive - and as a prisoner.

  
Jon can smell the promise of death.

  
He knows Arya can too, can see it in the fidgety, restless excitement that's taken her over. She hasn't killed since Bolton. He'd at least had the Bolton guards he'd hunted to slake his rage after they'd freed Sansa. She's had fights and sex, and he knows it isn't enough for her. He'll let her draw first blood, he decides. Baelish will have guards, and unfortunately, they'll have to die so they can put Baelish in chains and drag him back to Winterfell as their prisoner. And Sansa just specified alive - she never said they couldn't have their fun with him. Perhaps if the man is a little traumatised, he'll be quicker telling Sansa whatever it is she wants him to.

  
Baelish, however, proves trickier than either of them thought. They travel by night, because both of them prefer it and it has the advantage of meaning they can sneak up on camps. It takes a mere five nights of riding to come across the camp marked by Vale colours - meaning Baelish started riding North the _day_ Bolton died. Spies then. Arya tells him what little she knows about Baelish from her limited experience of him - but it's enough for Jon to know the man has fingers in many juicy pies, a spy in every major House, that he's a master in manipulation. The man owned brothels, for the love of Gods. And Arya says he always seemed a little too pleased to see Sansa. That just makes Jon angrier with him.

  
Arya seems disinclined to make a ruckus. She simply prowls around the camp and picks off the escort one by one, so quickly and so silently that none of them know anything is wrong until they see Needle flash in the torchlight and their throats are slit. He takes his lead from her, kills quickly and silently. Even so, his hands are stained scarlet by the end. Her face is spotted with blood spray and her hands are as gory as his own - and utter peace paints her face serene when she turns to him. They sit down by the fire, neither of them attempting to wash. Food is still in the pot and they help themselves, throwing scraps to Ghost and Nymeria as the wolves prowl about the camp. The wolves can have the bodies, they have no use for them. Arya declines to take any faces for her collection.   
                "I haven't got the potions to preserve them, so they'd rot before we needed them."

  
They wait by the fire until morning, when sounds from a tent tell them Baelish is stirring. Jon makes to draw his sword, but Arya shakes her head. In the morning light, the blood smeared on her hands and face still glistens thickly.

                "He's not a fighter," she murmurs from her position pressed against his side. "You won't need it." Baelish emerges unarmed and Arya looks up with a cool smile. "Good morning, Lord Baelish. Sit, please." Despite the please, it's an order, unquestionable and clear. Baelish glances around the campsite, sees the direwolves tearing apart a corpse, sees the blood on Jon and Arya's hands - and sits down. If it weren't for the very real fear in his eyes, Jon would call him unruffled. Arya smiles, wolfish, demonic. "Good man. Know who we are?"

                "You're Arya Stark. I can guess that this is Jon Snow."

                "Correct," Jon says, mimicking Arya's laid-back attitude. "Can you also guess what we want?"

                "I'm afraid not."

                "Wise choice of words there," Arya says, her smile brightening. "Afraid. I like fear on you, Lord Baelish. It smells delicious. I can practically taste it." Jon fancies he can smell her desire too - sweet and sharp and oh-so-tempting. His hand drifts to her thigh and she parts her legs immediately, inviting him to go higher. Baelish watches the movement for the barest second before he snaps his eyes back up to their faces. Arya keeps talking. "I should clarify, of course - you are our prisoner now. We're to escort you back to Winterfell. Someone is terribly keen to see you."

                "Sansa -"

                "You do not say her name," Jon interrupts, cold and deadly. "The Lady of Winterfell wishes us to bring you to her. I don't recommend you try to run, Lord Baelish. We're under orders to bring you back alive. Most unfortunately for you, that was our only instruction. If you attempt to run - or if you're stupid enough to try and attack us - we'll see you don't do so a second time." Jon sees the exact moment that the shutters close, where Baelish assesses his chances, judges them to be non-existent and in response starts to plot. Jon is utterly unconcerned. Let the man scheme and plot and plan - what can he do, with his guards all dead and his resource lines cut? Let him plan what best to say to Sansa. Even if it's good enough to buy her forgiveness, it won't buy Jon's. He wants to see Arya carve him up.

                  
He coughs, spits onto frozen snow from horseback. Baelish rides silently between them, Arya heading up their little column. Ghost is trotting alongside her, fiercely loyal as ever. Nymeria is ranging ahead, as independent as her mistress, fearsome and huge, a barely-seen shadow glimpsed through the trees occasionally. Baelish does not like the wolves. They make him uneasy, even frighten him when they bring back a fresh kill, muzzles dripping with blood and growling low in their ecstasy. It amuses Arya no end to send them both to circle him, or his tent at night, growling and snapping, making him jump and flinch, no matter how hard Jon can see him trying to maintain composure.

  
The strain of Arya's game is starting to show on him. He's pale, with dark circles under his eyes and he twitches if one of the wolves howls in the day. It'll be their last night camping on the road tonight, and Baelish retires early. Jon pulls Arya into him as she strolls to the edge of their camp to call the wolves, moulds her back to his front.

                "Wicked little bitch," he murmurs in her ear, sliding his hand into her hair to shake her like a puppy. She laughs.

                "You enjoy it too," she points out. "He's so twitchy anyway, it's almost too bloody easy. It's barely even fun to play with him."

                "Then stop it, and let me play with you instead," he proposes.

                "What did you have in mind?" she asks, her eyes all dark innocence and hot desire. For his answer, he slides a hand down her front, lingering to cup a breast, squeezing briefly before his gloved hand squirms under her layers to her belly, to pinch the flesh there hard enough to bruise.

                "Ah - Jon."

                "It's been six days, my sister," he reminds her. "Six days since I had you."

                "And you want me here, now? Are we giving our prisoner a little show?"

                "Might as well give him one happy memory of his time with us," Jon says. His hand ventures further down to press against her sex through her breeches. She squirms against him, pressing down to rub against his hand and he laughs at her, tightening his grip in her hair to yank her head to the side. She bares her throat willingly and he rubs his mouth against her pulse. "Desperate little slut," he mutters into her neck. She jerks away from him and he's a little afraid he's gone too far - until he sees the mischief on her face.

                "Catch me then," she challenges. "And we'll see which one of us is desperate for it." He smirks, lets her skip a few steps before he lunges forward. But she's quick, quicker than he could have believed and he remembers the Braavosi style of fighting she favours - quick, sharp, rapid. He feints to one side, waits for her to react - but there she is again, just out of his reach.   
  
She lets him catch her, and he knows it - especially when he realises where he's caught her. Baelish will be able to peek out of his tent and see them.

                "What are you doing?" he asks, kissing her neck. She squirms against him, her smile already desirous, heated.

                "Let him watch," she whispers. "Let him think he's got something to use against us to buy his freedom. It will amuse me greatly to listen to his proposal."

  
They even try and make it look like they're unaware of where they are - they don't take off all their clothes, even though the cold barely affects either of them. He puts a hand over her mouth - which makes her eyes darken and her desire rise, he sees it on her, feels it in her heat. She bites his palm when she peaks, her cry barely muffled by it. He bites her neck again, the first bruise he gave her has barely healed but he adds to it anyway, his teeth sinking in as he spends himself inside her.

  
While she sleeps, Ghost for once staying beside her to curl against her, his huge form almost dwarfing her small stature as she sleeps, he stares at her. She looks younger when she sleeps - but still a warrior. There's a part of him that hates that even in sleep, she looks like a fighter - her hand never strays far from Needle, she sleeps with it on - but the bigger part of him respects it, loves it.

  
The old Jon wants to protect her - wrap her up in furs and warmth, keep her by a fire and love her. The old Jon knows the gamble he takes every single time he spends his seed inside her cunt, wants to marry her to mark her as his own, preserve her honour and the honour of any child she might give him if neither of them are more careful. The new Jon, the one who bathes in blood and kills for the joy it brings them both - the new Jon doesn't care. He wants to protect her but knows she'd laugh in his face if he tried it, that she'd brush off any attempt at coddling. And besides, he's seen her scars. They're over her belly - who can say what damage that blade might have done inside? Perhaps they should talk about it. Perhaps they should acknowledge it at least.

  
He has to admit his surprise when Baelish doesn't immediately attempt to bargain with them for his freedom. He expects the man to propose it over breakfast but Baelish says nothing of it. Later that day, with Winterfell in sight, he and Arya halt their little procession to tie Baelish up. They're bringing Sansa a prisoner after all, not a visitor.

  
It's while Jon's tying his arms to his sides that Baelish finally strikes.

                "I saw the two of you last night," he says, quietly. "I saw you fuck her," he adds crudely, jerking his head towards where Arya stands with the wolves. Ghost is nosing at her belly, probably looking for food in her pockets.

                "Did you?" Jon queries, going for disinterested. He tightens the ropes around Baelish.

                "I imagine it's the sort of information you'd prefer Sansa -"

                "Lady Stark," Jon hisses, hating the sound of Sansa's name in Baelish's mouth.

                "The sort of information you would prefer Lady Stark did not know. I can keep it to myself - for a price, of course."

                "Let me guess," a voice drawls from behind Baelish. "You keep it to yourself if we untie you and let you go." Ghost is baring his teeth at Baelish, even as Arya rests one casual hand on his neck. Jon grins at her.

                "Hello, sweet sister," he says. "Did you want to hear his bargain too?"

                "No," she says, approaching them and fitting herself into Jon's arms. "I want to hear him beg." Baelish's eyes widen slightly.

                "You heard her, Baelish," Jon says almost lazily. "Beg." All they get is a smirk.

                "I don't need to beg," he says arrogantly. "If you do not want me to tell every single Lord in Westeros that Ned Stark's precious bastard is defiling his youngest daughter like a common whore, you will let me go immediately." He barely finishes the words before Jon punches him in the jaw. The man goes down like a sack of potatoes, grunting with the pain.

                "Call her whore again and I'll tear your miserable throat out," he hisses, rage consuming him. "Do you hear me, Baelish?"

                "Violence," Baelish laughs, a dry, forced sound. "The last refuge of the guilty."

                "We're no guiltier than the Targaryens - or the Lannisters," Arya points out, sounding distinctly amused as Baelish tries to struggle upright with no arms free to gelp himself. "Less, really, when you consider we share only one parent, not two. Now, be a good man and stand up. Ghost looks hungry - and you're about at the right height to be a snack for him down there." Baelish pales, for all his bravado.

                "I mean it," he says, almost desperately now. "I'll tell Sansa -"

                "Oh, Sansa knows, you stupid cunt," Arya snaps, apparently tiring of the game. "You mustn't blame Jon though - I just wanted to play with you. For your sake, Baelish, I hope you talk better than this when you see her. Because if you fail to persuade Sansa that you had good intentions when you gave her over to the monster who tortured her, you're ours. And I assure you, I want nothing more than to make you suffer for her suffering."

                "Tell him what we did to Bolton," Jon instructs her, stepping up close behind her so he can hold her waist. "Tell him."

                "We carved him up," Arya says, her voice light. "We cut off his hands, because he used them to hurt our sister. I cut out his tongue because he used it to say cruel things to her. And Jon carved the direwolf into his chest whilst he still breathed, so everyone in the world would know it was us who came for him, so the world would know what we do to traitors and those who seek to do us harm. So just imagine, Baelish, what we'll do to you for giving her into the hands of that monster. I think I'll start with your scheming little head, Baelish. I'd like to see how far a blade can go through a man's eyes before it reaches his brain. When I carved out Meryn Trant's eyes, he lived through it - for a while, anyway. It sounded painful. I'd like to know what you sound like when you scream, Baelish."

  
Jon has only ever asked her for one of her kill stories. Now he wants to know them all, wants to hear her describe in glorious, bloody detail how she has murdered every single man or woman who has wronged her. He pulls her back against him, pulls her hair to tip her head back to him so he can kiss her deep. She kisses back and they break apart to see Baelish staring at them with a dead-white face and very real terror in his eyes.

                "You're monsters," he rasps, still on his knees from Jon's punch. Arya bends over him, fits her fingers under his chin to force his face up to hers and Jon nearly holds his breath as she speaks.

                "Then you finally understand," she says, her voice light and mocking. "You are not travelling with people you can buy or bargain your freedom from. You are the prisoner of the monster's, Lord Baelish - and you are riding into hell."

  
  



	16. Arya VIII

Baelish calls them monsters.

  
He probably isn't wrong, either. Perhaps she and Jon are monsters, something evil come from beyond the curtain between their world and the world of the seven hells - assuming such places exist at all - and everyone but themselves can see them for the creatures they are whilst they cannot. She glances behind her, past the now blindfolded and securely gagged Baelish, to find his eyes already on her. He offers her a smile - just a smile, there's no heat or desire to it. He really could be just a brother, smiling at his sister. She could be just a sister, smiling at her brother.

  
Except they aren't, because the bruise on her neck still throbs and her scalp still tingles from the pull he administered to her hair. Except they aren't, because in the weak winter sunlight she can still see the faint yellowed bruises she left on his neck and see the faint scar of the new-healed split in his lip. They'll never be just brother and sister again.

  
They can't go back, any more than they could go back to being Sansa's brother and sister. Too many years have separated them from anything as innocent as childhood. And if they really are monsters - well, perhaps its more than time they just embraced that. She's never particularly made it a habit to give a damn about what people think of her. But Jon does care - he always has. He spent all his life as "Ned Stark's bastard" - perhaps he wants to just be Jon, instead of always having some other name forced onto him. She can't necessarily blame him. She's quite enjoying being Arya, instead of Cat or Mercy or Arry - it's nice somehow, to know her name will stay her name for as long as she wants it to. She can be Arya forever, if she likes.

  
Arya the monster. Arya the whore. Arya the assassin.

  
She quite likes all of them.

  
The guards must see their party on the approach because when they ride into Winterfell's courtyard, they're given immediate instructions.

                "The Lady Sansa desires you take the prisoner to the stables, my Lord," the nervous looking guard says, addressing only Jon. "He's to be locked in there overnight. And she requests that the La - er, that her sister join her in her chambers." She and Jon exchange glances, but he nods reassuringly at her before he grabs Baelish by the collar and hauls him off. She isn't worried. He'll find her as soon as he can after all, and it will not be so very long to be parted from him.

  
She goes to Sansa to make her report, her sister answering her quiet knock with an authoriative voice that makes her frown at the wood of the door before she goes inside. That is not how Sansa spoke before she and Jon left - there were traces of nerves and timidity even as Sansa instructed that Baelish be hunted down and brought to her. Arya goes in, but checks her stride at the scene that greets her. Sansa is sat at a desk Arya recognises as having been brought in from the Lord's solar, and the bed this room once held is gone. A fire crackles in the grate behind Sansa, illuminating her from behind like she's wearing some kind of halo or luminescent cloak. This Sansa seems to be in control, she seems to be steadier - there's no shake to her hands when she clasps them loosely on the desk in front of her. For some reason, it makes Arya a little wary, puts her a little on her guard. But Sansa's talking and her voice is open and friendly, there's no accusation or fear colouring her sister's voice.

                "Arya - welcome home. Did you find him? You're back earlier than I expected."

                "He was five days ride from here," Arya says shortly. "He must have had a spy, or spies amongst either the servants or the guards who must have reported Bolton's death to him. He wasn't very surprised to see us, either. We should question the servants, see what they know." Sansa nods.

                "It hardly surprises me to know he must have had spies. I'll be curious to hear how much he knew about the - quality of my marriage. Is Jon still with him?" Arya shrugs.

                "Possibly. Although Baelish is well tied, I can't imagine him giving Jon much trouble to delay him." Arya looks keenly at Sansa, the pale, unemotional face staring at her, the steady hands and frowns. A nameless something niggles at her, the vague feeling that not all is right will not leave her - and Arya's been a fighter too long to ignore her gut instincts, especially when it comes to family. "What has been happening here, whilst we've been gone?" she asks, watching Sansa closely so she can analyse reactions and expression.

  
Sure enough, guilt passes briefly over her sister's face and suddenly Arya can't swallow or breathe quite right.

                "Sansa? Sansa, what have you done?"

                "It was necessary," Sansa whispers, sudden fear in her eyes. "I'm so sorry Arya - but this must be done."

  
There's a sudden move behind her and Arya's hand flies to Needle, determined to defend herself. She comes face to face with Brienne and a boy she doesn't know, and at least Brienne looks guilty. But it doesn't stop her fighting, Needle flashing in the light of Sansa's fire as it clashes shrilly with Brienne's much bigger blade.

                "Do you really want to do this?" she gasps out as Brienne slashes quickly at her. "Kill me, and Jon'll tear apart the world to avenge me -"

                "Not killing you," Brienne grunts with effort as she answers. "Just a distraction."

  
Something hard and heavy and very solid crashes into the back on Arya's head and she goes to her knees with a grunt. It's with effort that she raises her eyes upwards.

                "May the Gods have mercy," someone whispers. It might be Sansa, praying for safety following this bitter betrayal. It might be Arya herself, giving her sister a warning. Either way, she's unconscious before she falls face-first onto the floor.

  
She comes round in her own old bedroom, a knot the size of an egg on the back of her head, a fierce headache, alone - and unarmed. Her pack is gone, Needle is gone, and even the hidden blade in her boot is gone. Rage fills her and despite the room swaying alarmingly, she rushes to the door.   
  
Locked.   
  
She slams her fist into the wood, screams Jon's name. There's no answer from outside, but then she barely expected one. She whirls round, staggers back to the bed, wills herself not to vomit from the combination of the pain in her head and her very real fear at being separated from Jon.   
  
Once her brains feel less like scrambled eggs, she considers her options. She has no immediately obvious means of picking the lock and even if she did, she can't be certain if Sansa has set a guard or not. Unarmed and with a head injury, she'd struggle to fight someone off. She could wait for nightfall and tie her sheets together and escape out of the window - but then she'd have to search the place to find Jon and even with the limited number of people in the castle, she'd get caught. And she'd need to find Needle too, she won't leave without something so precious. _Search the room_ , a voice that sounds remarkably like Jaqen whispers in her head. _Arya Stark does not require blades to fight_.   
  
She combs the room from top to bottom and finds nothing bigger than splinters. Her skin feels too small for her frame, she feels like she's splitting at the seams - she needs Jon, cannot bear to be separated from him, doesn't like not knowing where he is or what he's doing - is he a prisoner too? Has Sansa ordered him locked up too, in some room far away from her? She can picture him in her mind, see him pacing furiously as he too assesses his options. _Jon, my brother, my love, where are you?_ she thinks almost desperately, willing him, somehow, to hear her.

  
No answer comes and she has to fight for breath suddenly. She has not felt panic like this since she was pushing her way through a baying crowd outside the Sept of Baelor to try and save her father. She panics now, fear and dread and a thousand other emotions she hasn't used in years crowding to the fore.

  
She finds herself huddled against the wall, her head in her hands, eblows on her drawn up knees. She cannot panic, she cannot lose control. If she is going to escape from this prison, find Jon - and confront Sansa - she must be calm.

  
Why, why would Sansa do this? Why now, why lock them up, why be so cruel as to separate them? _You know your sister_ , the voice that sounds like Jaqen urges. _Think, lovely girl_. Does she know her sister? Sansa's changed as much as she and Jon - but Sansa was never cruel before. She had moments of being spiteful, in the way children could be - but she had never been intentionally, willfully cruel. But if this is not Sansa's wish, then who is doing this? Who is making Sansa do this? Because Sansa had been acting strangely, Arya had spotted it at once - and had ignored it until it was too late. As soon as she'd seen Sansa, she'd had the sense of there being something not quite right, something being wrong.

  
It leaves her with two options - either Sansa is being manipulated, or threatened. Neither option leaves her with anything but anger. She and Jon have not come so far and killed so many for someone to take the place of Ramsay Bolton and start using their sister for their own ends. She crosses to the door again and bangs on it - but it isn't Jon she calls for this time.

                "I want to see my sister! Sansa! I demand an audience with the Lady of Winterfell."

  
It's not until nightfall that there's the sound of a key in the lock and the door opens. She scrambles up from the floor beside the bed, braces for a sword, a blow, anything. It never comes and she gasps aloud at who comes through the door.

                "You!"   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't kill me, please don't kill me, please don't kill me...


	17. Jon IX

Jon paces restlessly, anger gripping his heart as he tries frantically to remember what the hell happened. He'd just locked Baelish into an empty stable, turned to leave and then - darkness. The lump on the back of his head tells him someone got him with something heavy - but who? And how had he allowed them to take him by surprise? He was supposed to be better than that - and he had let Arya walk away from him, he'd let such an obvious fucking ploy distract him and he'd let her go.

  
This was why, this was exactly why he shouldn't trust anyone but Arya.

  
They've locked him in Bran's old room, far enough away from Sansa's new lodging that she apparently can't hear him trying to batter the door down in an attempt to get to Arya. Has Sansa actually done this - split them up, deliberately separated them from each other? Has she locked Arya up too, thrown her in a room alone to wonder what was happening?

  
She must have - or Arya would be raising hell surely? If she was free and he was not, wouldn't she be looking for him? He would be looking for her, if she had proved absent after he had returned. Had he returned being the key to that. He should have insisted they stay together - but he had trusted Sansa, hadn't even thought to worry about it, had seen no reason to worry about anything happening to Arya within the walls of Winterfell. He'd made the mistake of assuming she was safe here.

  
It was a mistake he has no intentions of repeating once he has her back - and he is getting her back, if he has to tear the castle apart stone by stone to do it. He slams his fist against the door one final time, an incoherent growl leaving him.

  
Why the hell would Sansa order this? She'd been fine with it - or as fine as she could be. He and Arya have agreed to every condition she had set, everything they have done has been for her, to make her happy. But - would Sansa do this? It has been years since he's seen her, known her, and he'd not really known her very well even then. But she was never deliberately cruel. He crosses to the window, stares out over the frozen ground around the castle. He's too high up to jump.

  
No, he doesn't think Sansa would do this, not on her own. Not without someone whispering poison into her ear, manipulating her and making her think that this brutal separation of him from Arya is the right thing to do. But who then? Not Theon - he can barely string two words together. That big woman, Brienne, whom Arya seemed to know and who Sansa seemed to trust? She's an unknown quality, that woman, therefore not to be trusted at all.

  
Jon resumes his pacing.

  
Not knowing where Arya is is killing him. He feels as if there are a thousand insects underneath his skin, all swarming and crawling and fighting to get out. He needs her, he needs to know if she is safe, if she has been harmed or touched or hurt. He needs to be able to reach out and touch her, hold her, see her. He wants to breathe in her scent and taste her lips, he wants - oh Gods, he just needs her. He cannot sit, cannot stand, cannot be still.

  
They - whoever they are - have taken Longclaw, and there is nothing in this room he can hope to use as any kind of a weapon. He feels almost as naked without his sword as he does without Arya, just as vulnerable. He does not like the feeling, the feeling of being weak and useless. He needs the sword, just as he needs her. If he closes his eyes, he fancies he can picture her, locked up like him, just as angry as him. _Be brave, little sister - I am coming for you._ He makes the promise silently, inside his own head, hoping against all logic and reason that she'll somehow hear it.

  
He thinks it must be nearly sunset but he can't be sure - can't even be certain how long he was unconscious for. It can't have been much more than long enough for them to disarm him and get him inside but who knows? His fists clench at his sides as he thinks of someone knocking her out - someone putting their hands on her, vulnerable and unconscious. Oh, when he gets out of here and finds out who did this, there won't be a safe place for them to hide from him. He'll show the entire world what happens to people who dare put hands on Arya. He'll bathe in blood and taste it, he'll tear apart anyone - _anyone_ \- who's dared to try and tear them apart.

  
The waning moon is high in the sky when there's any sign of movement outside his door. He hasn't bothered trying to get a fire going, because he's hardly bothered by the cold, so the room is dark when he hears the key in the lock. He jumps to his feet from where he'd sat at the fireside, slides himself seamlessly into the darkest shadow by the door.

                "Jon?" It's Sansa, sounding frightened, timid. He has to force himself not to lay hands on her, not to shake her and demand to know where Arya is. He steps into the line of torchlight.

                "Where is she?" he demands, his voice icy cold.

                "She's safe," Sansa says, her head well up.

                "That doesn't answer my question," Jon growls. "Sansa, tell me where she is."

                "I'm to bring you to the Great Hall," Sansa answers, her voice shaking slightly. Jon forces himself to calm down, to look at her.

  
She looks frightened, there's no other word for it.

                "Sansa? Is someone making you do this? Is someone threatening you? Tell me who it is, Sansa, I can help you. Me and Arya - if someone's making you do this, we can make them stop -"

                "I don't _want_ you to make him stop!" Sansa cries, indignant now - and Jon realises it's him she's frightened of. A cold, sick feeling washes over him. And who is him? A guard is stepping up -and he's carrying chains.

                "You can't be serious."

                "Please don't fight this, Jon. Please."

                "I'll come quietly - if you tell me where she is."

                "She's already in the Hall," Sansa says, frustration now colouring her tones. "He tried to get her to see sense but she won't, just keeps on and on asking for you - so he wants to see you both."

                "Who is he?" Jon demands, letting the guard cuff him. He does so for two reasons - because he believes Sansa, whether for good or ill, when she says Arya is already in the Hall; and because he can use the chain linking his wrists together to strangle people if necessary. Sansa doesn't answer, just starts leading him outside. "Sansa, who is it?" No matter how many times he asks, she doesn't answer him - but outside the Hall, she turns to him.

                "Don't be frightened," she tells him. He snorts derisively.

                "Nothing frightens me," he answers. "I want to see Arya - now."

  
The doors are opened, Sansa leads him inside. He's looking for her at once, not caring a jot for how many people seem to be in the room. She's there, not in chains, and she's rushing at him. She flings her arms around him and he returns it as best as he can, raising his manacled wrists so he can slip his hands behind her, securing her inside the chained circle his arms make.

                "Jon, thank fuck," she murmurs. He presses her close, feels the relief at having her back again wash through him like something physical. The crawling, itching sensation eases at once, even the lingering thumping headache the blow had given him seems to lessen. He draws back a little from the embrace, searches her face for any sign she's been hurt.

                "Did anyone hurt you?" he demands, his voice harsh. "Did anyone touch you?"

                "Someone gave me a hell of a smack over the head but fuck knows who. They took Needle too." There's murder in her eyes and he nearly grins to see it. "You?"

                "Knot on the back of my head - but I'll live. They took Longclaw too." He finally thinks to look up, as someone clears their throat somewhere. She half-turns in his arms, her hands gripping his forearm. He's glad she keeps her grip because he finds himself looking at a man he's believed dead for a very long time.

  
The ghost - except it isn't a ghost, Jon can see how real he looks - speaks, his voice low and angry.

                "Care to explain to me what the _fuck_ you think you're doing?"

                "Care to explain to me how you're here?" Jon tosses back, tightening his hold on Arya to pull her back against him. It's awkward with his wrists chained together but he couldn't care less about that as he presses them together as best as he can. She seems equally keen, gripping his hands in her own and clinging tight. "See, the last I heard was that you'd been murdered - so tell me why I should trust you, or believe this is really you. Tell me why I shouldn't question why the fuck you thought you had the right to put your hands on Arya and keep her from me? Tell me how the hell you're standing there, Robb Stark - and I might consider letting whichever bastard hurt her walk away from me alive."

  
  
  



	18. Arya IX

                "You're dead," she says flatly, her heart racing inside her chest. "I know you're dead. I was at the Red Wedding, Robb, I saw what they did to you. I saw your body - and Grey Wind." She swallows convulsively, as memories of that sight return to her and rise up before her eyes. Suddenly, strong hands are wrapped around her upper arms, steering her into a chair. She struggles, breaks free, steps away - and sees the hurt cross the man's face.

                "Arya -"

                "No. Who the hell are you? How dare you pretend to be him? What witchcraft is this?"

                "Arya, please, it's really me. I can explain everything - just please sit down." She shakes her head.

                "I'll listen to you if you give me back Needle, and my dagger. And only then if you tell me where Jon is, and take me to him." Anger darkens Robb's face now.

                "In due time. Sansa's told me something - disturbing about you and Jon. I need to talk to you about it."

                "There's nothing you have to say to me I'm interested in hearing without Jon here," she says obstinately. "How did you think this was going to work Robb - assuming that that is who you are? That you were going to get here and we'd all fall into line? Sorry. I've been surviving on my own for years. You don't get to just wander in, having apparently survived being beheaded and start handing out orders that just get followed."

                "Sansa seems happy with it."

                "Sansa has spent the last year being tortured and raped by a sadistic cunt. Who, may I point out, Jon and I killed to free her from. So if you have been alive all this time, where the _hell_ have you been? Why didn't you save her? Or did you just want to pick an easy time to show up and start coming the lordly older brother over us?"

                "You don't trust me, yet I haven't heard you have any issues with Jon being a dead man walking," he snaps back, anger and hurt both accusing her in his gaze.

                "I didn't see Jon's headless corpse being paraded around with his direwolf's head sewn in place of his own!" Arya shrieks, losing the last vestiges of her control. She can't think straight without Jon, can't breathe right without him beside her, can't control herself without Jon. The feeling of bursting out of her skin is intensifying, she drags her nails over her arms to try and stop it itching so much - not that it has any affect at all through her layers. "So you tell me, you tell me who the hell you are, or I swear I will kill you. If you think I need a blade to do you harm, you think again. You have _no idea_ what I've done since Father died, you have no idea who I've become and what I've learnt to do."

                "Arya, it's really me, I swear to the Gods it's really me. I can tell you everything, I can explain everything, but I need you to listen."

                "I want to see Jon first," she says stubbornly.

                "Is what Sansa tells me true?" he demands in return. "That the two of you are - are -" The man claiming to be Robb stops, pauses, swallows hard. Arya can all but see him searching for the right words.

                "Are we fucking?" she says crudely. "Is that what Sansa's told you? That Jon and Arya have gone mad and they're fucking each other? Well, it is true. And you know something? Out of the years of hell I have endured since they cut Father's head off and you rode off to war like you thought life's one of the shit old songs Sansa used to love - he is the best thing I have ever had. He touches me and I feel alive for the first time, he kisses me and I forget how I had to half-starve and fight and how I nearly died, how someone stabbed me in the belly and twisted the knife so much I still feel it - I forget all of that when he's got his hands on me. When he's next to me, when I can see him and touch him and breathe in his scent, I feel safe for the first time since I was a child. So you take me to him, you take me to him right now and I'll listen to whatever story you have to tell me about why and how you're here." She ends her rant, breathing hard, glaring at the shock and open disgust on Robb's face.

                "Fine," he says in an oddly choked voice. "If it's the only way to make you listen, fine. Come with me."

  
He takes her to the Great Hall, sends Sansa for Jon. There are men she doesn't recognise in there but she couldn't care less. Sansa has gone to get Jon, and right now that is enough. When he comes in - in chains - she breaks free of the two men who'd quietly closed up around her when Robb had taken his place at the centre of the High Table. She runs to him, sees him lift his arms so she can throw her arms around him, then feels him lower them behind her so she's held tight and safe within the circle of his chained wrists. She lets out a long, shuddering breath and the tension bleeds out of her as she clings to him.

                "Jon," she says, then, "thank fuck," because she can't think of anything else to say. He pulls back a little, searches her face with fathomless black eyes. She hasn't seen them so black since she'd told him her story at Castle Black.

                "Did anyone hurt you? Did anyone touch you?" He looks angry, really angry - and that makes her feel better too. The longer she spends in his arms, the better she feels.

                "Someone gave me a hell of a smack over the head but fuck knows who. They took Needle too. You?"

                "Knot on the back of my head - but I'll live. They took Longclaw too."

  
She could have stayed like that forever, just hanging onto his jerkin, but behind them, someone clears their throat and she remembers everything else. Jon looks up, away from her, and she turns in his arms to face it too. She hangs onto his forearm but he makes no attempt to lift his arms away. He keeps her there, safe and warm and close and Gods, but she loves him for it.

                "Care to explain to me what the fuck you think you're doing?" Robb demands of them.

                "Care to explain to me how you're here?" Jon says back, tightening his hold on Arya to pull her back against him. She's certain it must be awkward, what with his wrists chained together but she couldn't care less as he presses them together. For her part, she transfers her grip to his hands, holding on and clinging tight. Jon keeps talking. "See, the last I heard was that you'd been murdered - so tell me why I should trust you, or believe this is really you. Tell me why I shouldn't question why the fuck you thought you had the right to put your hands on Arya and keep her from me? Tell me how the hell you're standing there, Robb Stark - and I might consider letting whichever bastard hurt her walk away from me alive." They asked exactly the same questions she realises, wanting to know how and why and who. Robb glares at them.

                "Everyone can leave us - not you, Sansa. Unless you'd rather?" Sansa shakes her head.

                "I'll stay." The Hall empties out and Robb sits down heavily.

                "Who are all those men?" Jon asks him.

                "I'll ask the bloody questions," Robb shouts.

                "Not until you've told us what this all means!" Jon shouts right back.

                "I tried to explain it to Arya, except she didn't want to hear it without you. I was dead - Roose Bolton drove a knife into me at the Red Wedding and I died there. But it wasn't my body they paraded around like a battle trophy. My understanding of it was that Mother and I were thrown into the Trident - quietly. They didn't want anyone to use us as a rallying point. I remember dying," Robb says, quietly now. "I remember that knife going in and I remember dying. The next thing I know I was waking up on the side of the river, with a Red Priest bending over me and telling me not to panic." Arya steps forward, momentarily forgetting the chains around Jon's wrists. He steps with her, keeps his grip on her.

                "This Red Priest," she says through numb lips. "This Red Priest - was it Thoros? Thoros of Myr?"

                "Yes. He told me he'd seen you, that you were still alive - or had been, before you ran away from the Brotherhood."

                "The Brotherhood sold my friend Gendry to a Red Priestess. I wasn't going to forgive it so easily. They were going to sell me back to you and Mother as a hostage. I refused to stick around to allow it."

                "Still as stubborn as you always were then."

                "If - if that's all true, then answer me this," Arya demands, glaring at him. "Where the hell have you been?"

                "I scraped together what I could of those who remained after the massacre. We were going to head to the capital, to find out what we could about Sansa - as by then we knew you were no longer there - but before we could get there, we heard about Joffrey - and that Sansa was wanted for his murder and had fled the capital. There was no whisper of either you at all, and so we began to search. We gathered men along the way, men still loyal to the name Stark. We'd have gone to the Wall - but realistically, what could Jon have done? Short of us all taking the black, and we wanted to fight - and find you girls. We were getting whispers of Sansa, but you had vanished again," he says, looking straight at Arya.

                "If you were getting whispers of Sansa, then why the fuck didn't you help her?" Arya demands. "You left her with that cunt Bolton - and don't you lie to me, Robb, you must have known she'd been married to him. It was the first thing I heard when I got back into Westeros. So why the hell did you leave her married to that monster for a year?"

                "You don't understand war, Arya, I couldn't just stroll in and demand -"

                "This is family," she grates out. "Not war. And when it's family, you do whatever you have to do to save them."

                "You don't think Roose Bolton might have recognised the man he murdered?"

                "You failed her," Arya says shortly. "So if you really are Robb, and any of your story is true - then prove it. Tell me something only you would know. Tell me - tell me how old I was the first time you saw me hit the bulls-eye on the archery target. When we were the only two out there, how old was I - and what did you say to me?"

                "You were nine, and I said 'if you keep that up, you'll have to be a knight and start competing.'" Arya lets out the breath she feels like she's been holding since she first saw Robb framed in her doorway. She cranes round to look up at Jon, even as he glances down to her from confirmation.

                "It's him," she says. "I never told anyone that." Jon nods, brushes a kiss onto her temple.

                "I know it's him," he murmurs. "I can smell it." She supposes that makes sense - if he's like Jon, perhaps they can recognise it on each other. Robb clears his throat again.               

                "If we've got that out of the way," he says, icily, "then do you two want to explain yourselves?"

                "Unchain him," Arya says, looking down at the manacles linking Jon's wrists together. "Unchain him, give us back our weapons - and then we'll talk. I promise."

  
Robb obviously doesn't want to, but he has them unchain Jon. A grim-faced soldier hands Arya back Needle and her dagger, and gives Longclaw back to Jon. There's a beat of silence while they both reclaim their weapons, buckling them back on and adjusting belts.

  
She actually sees the tension in him snap, and he's striding forward to snatch her up properly this time, his hands touching her face, her hair, her neck, stroking the line of her waist only to slide onto each side of her neck so he can push her chin up with his thumbs and kiss her. She forgets Robb, forgets Sansa, forgets about being in Winterfell's Great Hall and just kisses back, her hands wrapped around his wrists and holding so tightly she can't tell if it's her pulse or his pulse she can feel thrumming along the points of contact her fingers make.

                "You're definitely OK?" he murmurs, breaking their kiss to press his forehead to hers.

                "Definitely."

                "Never letting you out of my sight again," he mutters darkly and she chokes out a laugh.             

"Likewise. Jon, I -" She stops, searching for the words and coming up short, trying to put the fear and panic of the last few hours into words and failing. She settles for "I missed you," which isn't adequate at all but he's looking at her like he understands.

                "I know, sweet sister," he whispers against her lips. "I know."


	19. Jon X

Robb's upset, and Jon can't necessarily blame him. He knows this must be a lot to deal with at a moment's notice - and he also understands that it cannot have been ideal to hear it second-hand from Sansa instead of directly from them.

  
But whilst the part of him that is still human desperately wants to reach for the only person on earth likely to understand exactly how he feels, it's overwhelmed completely by the part of him that needs to ensure that Arya is alright. She's on the edge, he can tell, he can see the desperation on her and feel her anxiety prickling against his own skin. What he can't understand is exactly why - and this isn't the place to ask her. He frames her face in his hands and forces her to look at him.

                "Do you want a minute?" he asks. "Just a minute with just me?" She nods almost frantically, her eyes darting nervously around. "I'll get it," he promises. "I'm just going to -"

                "Take her into the antechamber," Sansa instructs suddenly, materialising at Jon's elbow. She's still pale, but there's a new nerve to her face.

                "No, I need to -" Robb starts, before Sansa turns to him with a sudden, fierce shake of her head.

                "No, Robb," she says. "I went along with this because I thought it was for the best - that if we spoke to them separately they might understand our point of view better. But this is hurting them, don't you see that? They'll come straight back, won't you? And we'll listen while they explain."

                "We will," Arya says suddenly. "We swear it." Jon doesn't wait for Robb to consent or not. He takes Arya by the hand and tugs her into the antechamber, slams the door behind them. He opens his arms to her and she flies into them, clings tight.

                "What do you need?" he asks quietly. "What do you need from me right now, to make it better?" She takes in a deep, shuddering breath.

                "Just this, just for a minute. Just hold me." So he does. He keeps her wrapped in his arms whilst she holds his shoulders, and they don't move or speak for some time. When she does break their silence, it's to soothe his own concerns.

                "I don't care what he says," she murmurs. "You're mine. I'll leave here in a heartbeat if he tries to tell us to stop this. I know it's a sin, Jon. I know that every God would damn us both for this, I know that people won't like it - but I had time, a long time, to consider all that long before we came to Winterfell. Every night on the road between Castle Black and here - every night you wrapped me up close and held me all night long, I had time to consider it. Every day we were at Castle Black and planning what we were going to do to free Sansa from Ramsey - I had time to think of it. And if I wasn't prepared to live this life - then I would never have kissed you in the crypts." She pulls back, just a little, just enough so he can see her face - and read the honesty in her eyes. "I will walk away from my own life before I give you up," she finishes on a whisper, and he shakes his head.

                "Nothing's worth your life -" he begins, until she kisses him.

                "You are," she says, fiercely. "You are worth everything to me."

                "You know I feel the same," he returns. "You know how far I'll go for you." She nods.

                "I know." He wraps her up again, speaks against her hair.

                "We have to go back out there. We have to explain to him."

                "Together?"

                "Together," he agrees. She steps back and takes his hand with a smile. "Try not to lose your temper," he urges, grinning at her.

                "If you try and keep yours, I'll keep mine," she returns, grinning just as wide.

  
Someone has ordered ale brought in and Arya pounces on it. Robb frowns at that bit Arya just raises her eyebrows at him after draining half her tankard.

                "Do I look in any way like I drink wine?" she queries. Jon sees the tiny twitch in Robb's lips. He'd pull Arya down into his lap, except he doesn't want this to get confrontational. He just drags the fourth chair so close to his that their knees will touch and she takes the hint. Even the tiny point of contact helps him keep his brain in order, but it's Arya who speaks first. "How are you?" she asks, looking directly at Sansa. "Are you alright? Is Theon?" Robb jerks slightly at the mention of Theon.

                "I'm fine," Sansa says, her voice soft. "Just fine. Nightmares, of course. Theon is - much as he was when you left. He's in our bedchamber. I didn't want him distressed." Arya nods.

                "Good. Good. I can start sleeping in your room, if you like? Can hold you like I did that first night?" Sansa offers her a smile, a tentative one as if she still expects anger or rage.

                "We'll see," she says softly. Robb clears his throat.

                "I agreed I'd listen," he says, a little stiffly. "So talk. Arya? Where have you been?"

                "Around. But specifically, I was in Braavos. After I left the Brotherhood, and then - left my other travelling companion, I got the hell out of the country. I believed you dead, had no idea about Sansa. So I got out. I went to the House of Black and White - and I joined the Faceless Men."

                "The - you were an assassin?" Robb demands, his face paling.

                "I was learning to be an assassin," Arya corrects. "But I chose to leave, after I was ordered to kill a woman who had done nothing wrong."

                "So you didn't kill anyone?" Robb asks, unmistakable relief on his face.

                "I didn't say that. I killed, Robb. I killed a man who had wronged us, wronged our family. Meryn Trant died in agony at my hands, Robb, for killing a man I counted as a friend. I killed alright, just not who I was told to kill. That's where I've been - learning to survive." Arya takes a swig of ale then, then eyes the tankard in her hand. "I suppose you heard someone massacred the Frey's?" she asks, almost casually.

                "I heard - was that you?"

                "It was me. I posed myself as a servant, and once inside the castle, I murdered Black Walder Rivers and Lothar Frey. I cooked them into a pie and served it to Walder Frey. I slit his throat, and I poisoned the wine. Every Frey man - dead, at my hand." She hasn't mentioned the faces, Jon realises. She has told neither Sansa nor Robb of the faces - only him. It's something to ask her about, once they're alone.

                "You -"

                "I did it for you - and Mother." Nobody needs to ask about Catelyn. Her absence betrays the fact that unlike he and Robb, she was not saved from the grave.

  
There's a part of Jon that hates himself for his relief.

  
Robb scrubs his hands over his face. He turns to Jon.

                "And you?" he asks. "Sansa told me - told me that you're like me."

                "I am. And like you, I was killed by my own men. They'd made me Lord Commander - and I let the Wildling's cross the Wall." He takes the tankard of ale from Arya's hand, takes his own mouthful. "The Night King, the White Walkers, the wights - they're real, Robb. They're not just one of Old Nan's scary stories on a snowy night. I've seen them, fought them. And they're coming. I let the Wildling's cross the Wall to get away from the army of the dead and in exchange, my own men wrote traitor on a cross and stabbed me five times in the chest and stomach. I died in the snow at Castle Black - and I woke up with Ghost beside me and a friend waiting for me. A Red Priestess - the same Red Priestess your Red Priest sold Arya's friend to - brought me back." Sansa looks up then.

                "Wait," she says sharply. "The Red Priestess who brought you back - and the Priest who saved you Robb - and both of them knew Arya. Both of them connected - not by faith, or by Gods - but by a boy they sold, and the girl who hated them for it. Arya runs away from the Brotherhood - and they resurrect you, Robb. And out of everywhere that Red Priestess could have been, she ends up at the Wall - at the exact right time to resurrect Jon from the dead." Sansa sighs impatiently, and Jon supposes his own face reflects the blankness of Arya's and Robb's. "That's a little more than coincidence, isn't it? And Arya - what made you decide on the Wall, once you were travelling back from the Twins?" Sansa demands of Arya, who blinks a bit.

                "I just - I knew about you. I knew who you were married to, and I wanted to help you. But I - I suppose I wanted help. And as far as I knew - Jon was the only one left."

                "You suppose? No. Why the Wall? And why then?"

                "It was just - the first chance I had to go, I suppose. And I - I -"

                "You could have dealt with Ramsey alone," Sansa points out, jumping up. "You could have done it easily, you've trained as an assassin and you got into the Twins, successfully taking down an entire House. Nobody knew your face, the entire country - including all of us - believed you dead. It was the perfect disguise. You very easily could have dealt with Ramsey alone." Jon's staring at her now. Arya's frowning, shaking her head - but there's an uncertainty to it.

                "I -"

                "Did you always mean to go to Jon?" Sansa asks.

                "I - I don't- no. No I didn't. I was at the crossroads when I made that choice. I could ride to the right, and come to Winterfell - or I could turn left and keep on North. And - and I just decided. I just turned North. I suddenly - I wanted to see Jon."

                "This was always meant to happen," Sansa breathes. "You're the thing that links us all - it was your decision to kill Ramsey, it was you that linked the Red God's servants who resurrected our brothers - and it has been you who learnt to kill to take revenge. You can't tell me that this isn't where we are all meant to be - here, together, right now."

  
He could protest, deny his belief in fate or coincidence or destiny - but things are coming back to him. Melisandre, warning him to keep Arya close. The spirits in the Wolfswood, calling Arya Princess of Death and telling her that she'd strike the decisive blow of the war. Even before that, Ghost had always been howling for Arya, and it had been Arya he'd thought of the most. Even Robb is looking slightly awed - although there's still the lingering disgust. When he talks, Jon knows it's got to be confronted, that it's got to be dealt with. He wishes against all logic that it didn't have to be, that Robb could just see what Sansa apparently can - that Robb could see how much they need each other, that it isn't about base desire or sex or them being half-siblings - that it's just that they need each other like air and water, that they're so closely interwoven that they need each other to feel normal.

                "If Arya - alright, if this is all somehow fate, or meant to be, or there's some deeper meaning here, fine - but it doesn't explain why the two of you are - are committing incest under our roof."

  
He and Arya exchange looks - and he chooses to be the one who speaks.

                "We never planned it," he says, simply. "But I - I saw her in the courtyard at Castle Black, and ever since then, ever since then - I've needed her."

                "You need her," Robb repeats. "And you can't just - just be happy being normal with her?"

                "No," Jon says, simply. "I need to be - I need to be hers, in every possible way. And I need her to be mine, in every possible way. I think something went wrong when Melisandre brought me back - and she helps me feel more human. She touches me and I feel normal again, she kisses me and I feel like I'm in control. I can only sleep if she's next to me, without her I don't feel human. I feel like I'm crawling out of my skin when we're separated."

                "You said the same," Robb says, turning to Arya. "When I came to you in your room - that's exactly what you said." Jon turns his head to look at her, sees a blush spread over her cheeks as she meets his eyes.

                "And I meant it," she says simply. "He makes me feel safe. But Jon's right too," she continues, turning to Robb again. "It's not - it's not the sex. Not really. It's just - I need him, in every possible way. I won't give him up," she says, her voice changing from soft to hard in an instant. "I won't, Robb. I need him and I love him, and I will not give that up for anyone. You think we don't know we're sinners? You think we don't know we damn ourselves every single time? I'll take that, I'll damn myself a thousand times - if at the end of it, I'm standing by his side. I need him, Robb. I need him like I've never needed anything before. If it makes you uncomfortable or if it disgusts you - we'll make you the deal we made Sansa. You won't see it, hear it or be told about it, we'll keep it to ourselves - but it has happened, is happening and will continue to happen."

                "You ask too much -" Robb starts, but Jon interrupts, as gently as he can.

                "We aren't asking, Robb. We're telling. I'll accept you as Lord of Winterfell, I'll bend the knee to you as King, if that's how it works out - but when it comes to Arya and I, we're beyond your rule. We came here to free Sansa and I swore to her that no matter what, we'd make sure nobody ever hurts her again. We swore we would protect her, Arya has sworn her sword to her. I intend to keep that promise. We'll leave if you insist, or try to insist, that we stop this."

                "Nobody is leaving," Sansa says before Robb can speak again. "We have a war to prepare for. We have battles to fight and alliances to make - and we have winter to prepare for. We barely stand a chance as it is - if we allow ourselves to be torn apart, we'll all be dead come spring. The lone wolf dies, Robb - but the pack survives."


	20. Arya X

Robb stops trying to argue as soon as Sansa speaks for them and Arya's relieved - except she sees how unhappy Robb still is and she knows she hasn't heard the last of it. If he catches either her or Jon alone, he'll keep trying to dissuade them. Still, if he does so, they can keep trying to persuade him.

  
She can't blame Robb for his anger and hurt. They got lucky with Sansa's understanding, but Robb will obviously not find it so easy. But they'll have time, she and Jon, they can make him see that this is not a bad thing, that it doesn't have to be a bad thing.

  
But there's also the part of her that worries about something else - because she and Jon do not just slake the darkness inside them both when they lie together - they feed it blood too. They kill together too, they indulge in the violence together and bathe in blood. Robb will be horrified, she's absolutely sure of it. And if Robb should decide to take up the questioning of Petyr Baelish - Baelish could tell him some stories. And Robb must see the teuth of it, and see it first hand. She and Jon must show him. She looks to Sansa first.

                "Do you want Petyr Baelish dead?" she asks her sister. Sansa sighs. Robb looks up, and Arya is moved to wonder how much Sansa's told him.

                "I still need to speak to him. He did get me out of King's Landing, after all. Regardless of his motives, he freed me from those monsters."

                "Then send for him, and question him. We will stay with you, and you can take your strength from us. Then if you say the word - you promised him to Jon and I."

                "And I'll keep that word." Sansa bends her head for a moment, Arya sees her gather a handful of her skirts in a fist, sees her shoulders jerk as she inhales deep and sharp. "Send for him," Sansa instructs. As she looks up, Arya sees determination, rage and hate in her sister's eyes. "Send for him," she repeats, standing. "And we will hear what he has to say."

  
While Robb sends one of his own men for Baelish, Sansa excuses herself to the antechamber for a moment, leaving the Hall to fall into silence. Arya stands up to pace the perimeter of the Hall, and whilst she feels Jon's eyes on her, he doesn't attempt to follow her l. She wanders slowly, occasionally reaches out to touch the stones of the walls, feels the odd warmth of them that comes from the hot springs. She turns at one point, to find both Robb and Jon watching her progress - Robb with confusion and something approaching assessment in his gaze, Jon with fondess. She wants to crawl into his lap and curl up there, feel his arms wrap around her and just be. She carries on, wanting to decide where she'll stand and what will be the best place to stand so she can watch Baelish squirm.

  
As she's passing the door to the antechamber, she hears it - muffled grunts, as if someone is in pain there. She pauses, looks around to see Jon fixing his eyes on her, behind Robb's head. She goes back to them, bends to whisper even though she's sure Sansa wouldn't hear if she shouted.

                "I'm going to see if she's alright," she says. "Stay here - both of you."

                "Shall I -" Robb starts, moving to stand.

                "She doesn't want to see a man just now Robb. I think - I think you should ask Jon about exactly what happened during her marriage." Jon's frowning though, and she knows why without him needing to voice it aloud. "She needs me, Jon. I'll come straight back."

  
She doesn't wait for his permission, understands his fear, harbours it herself - but she goes regardless, because just now Sansa's need is the greatest. She knocks on the antechamber door.

                "Sansa? It's me - only me. I am going to come in, Sansa." She gets no denial, so in she goes. Sansa is gripping a chair back with both hands, so tightly that Arya can see the tendons in he thin hands flexing, see the white of her knuckles even from here and against her sister's lily-white skin. Arya crosses to her in three swift strides, unlatches Sansa's fingers gently, but firmly enough that Sansa will know she has no choice.

                "I -" Sansa starts, then stops, presses her lips together until they've all but disappeared.

                "You're safe," Arya says, because it's what she would want to hear if it was her spiralling like this. "You are in Winterfell, with Robb and Jon just outside that door, and me right here - and Bolton is dead, Sansa. Nobody is going to hurt you." Sansa nods, but her breathing is laboured. "You've been so brave, Sansa, so brave and so strong."

                "Y - you're the strong one, with your sword and -"

                "Blades are one thing, courage is another. You have survived things that would have killed me in a damned day, Sansa, and you're still standing here and you're still breathing. Just because you wield no sword doesn't mean you're weak."

                "I - Arya, please - help me."

                "What can I do?" Arya asks her, because she hasn't felt this useless, this powerless, since she watched Gendry tied up in a haycart, rounding a corner and disappearing forever. "Tell me what you need, I'll do it."

                "Tell me - tell me how Ramsey died," Sansa whispers. "Did he beg you? Did he cry?"

                "Sansa -"

                "Tell me!" As frail as Sansa's hands might look, the grip of them is undeniable. Grey Stark eyes meet Tully blue and understanding is shared there that could never be put into words.

                "He begged," Arya says, through numb lips. "He screamed and cried and thrashed beneath us as we hurt him. We started with his hands, for daring to put them on you. I cut them off him. He died in agony, Sansa, I swear it. And he begged us for death before the end."

  
It's not quite the truth - but Sansa knows for herself that they made him scream. Arya might have embellished the truth slightly, but in Ramsey's screams, she'd heard the pleas he never gave voice to. She'd seen the tears on his face that were never sobs, just tears, but still, he had cried. And he had been afraid, he had known fear before the end –

                "He was terrified," she tells Sansa. "He was afraid, he called us monsters and he was reeked of fear, I swear it to you."

                "You made him suffer?" Sansa confirms, her eyes glittering in the candlelight. There aren't tears, Sansa's eyes are dry, Arya can see that.

                "You know we did. And if you ask it of me, we will do the same to Petyr Baelish. We will hunt down every last person who made you hurt, and we'll kill them."

                "Does knowing that, and that making me feel better - oh, Gods, Arya, does that make me a bad person?"

                "No. It makes you human. When people hurt us - when people hurt us, sometimes we need them to hurt too." Sansa inhales, sharp and deep through her nose as she stares down at Arya.

                "I felt joy, when you told Robb you had killed Meryn Trant," Sansa says quietly. "I've never been so happy as I was when I heard you say that. You couldn't have known of course, but Joffrey ordered Trant to beat me on several occasions- and he always seemed to enjoy it. You killed him for your own reasons - but you paid a debt of mine when you did it."

                "If I'd known that, he would have suffered more."

                "I'm sure he suffered regardless," Sansa answers, her voice softer now. She pulls a little away from Arya, steps back just a little - but she does not let go of Arya's hands. "Will you be with me, when I speak to Baelish? By my side?"

                "Yes. Always."

                  
So they go back out, and there Baelish is, Robb and Jon both facing him off, Brienne behind him, a guard Arya doesn't know as a silemt sentinel by the doors. Every eye is on Sansa as she walks back into thd Hall, Arya a half-step behind her. Baelish looks unnerved, and Arya has to wonder if he's been informed that he's facing two dead men, an assassin and a survivor of horrors he can't even begin to imagine. _A wolf pack_ , she thinks to herself. _A pack of monsters._

  
There's no preamble or prevaricating.

                "Did you know about Ramsey?" Sansa asks, her head well in the air. "Because if you didn't know, you're an idiot. If you did know - then you are my enemy."

                "I - I underestimated a stranger," Littlefinger says, and even to Arya it sounds weak.

                "You underestimated a stranger," Sansa repeats. The silences between her words feel heavy. Nobody speaks. "But it was always your job to know everything, Petyr - to know everything about everyone."

                "I -"

                "You freed me from the monsters who murdered my family only to give me to other monsters who murdered my family," Sansa says, her voice hard, cutting over Littlefinger's protests. "Would you like to hear about our wedding night, perhaps? He never hurt my face, you see, he needed my face, the face of Ned Stark's trueborn daughter, the heir to Winterfell. But the rest of me - he did as he liked with the rest of me, as long as I could still give him an heir when he was done." The silence in the Great Hall could be cut with a knife.

                "I'm so sorry," Baelish pleads, and it is a plea, that is unquestionable.

                "I can still feel it," Sansa carries on, her voice still hard, that unforgiving, brutal tone. "I don't mean in my tender heart that still pains me so, I can still feel what he did in my body, standing here right now." A ripple passes through both Robb and Jon, both of them putting hand to sword. Behind Sansa, unseen by Littlefinger, Arya reaches out to touch her, to put a hand on her sister's back and press lightly. "I will carry the scars of his blade for the rest if my life, for all of time I will carry the scars of what he did. And until the day I die, every time I shut my eyes, I will feel the weight of him pressing down on me as he raped me night after night after night."

                "Sansa, I - I did not know, I swear I did not -"

                "You said you would protect me," Sansa says, and to Arya her words sound like a death knell.

                "I will - you must believe me when I tell you that I will -"

                "I don't believe you any more, I don't need you anymore. You can't protect me. You did not protect me, you sold me like a brood mare to further - to further what, Petyr? Some great plan you have? You gave me into the hands of monsters, you have proved you care not for my safety. You speak of protecting me - but I would never have needed protecting if you had not sent me into the hands of my rapist. And you wouldn't even be able to protect yourself if I order Jon and Arya to kill you here and now."

  
The silence stretches out, and it's Baelish who breaks it.

                "Tell me what to do. Tell me what you want -"

                "What if I want you to die, here and now?" Sansa whispers.

                "Then I shall die." Sansa lets out a breath so long, Arya could swear she's been holding it for hours.

                "Then die," she says, simply. She looks to Jon, then behind her to Arya. "Bring me his head when you're finished," she instructs. "The wolves can have his body, but I want his head. Brienne, come." Sansa strides out of the Hall, leaving Baelish pale and trembling behind her. Jon is smiling, a terrible, terrible smile as he draws his dagger.

                "Robb," he says, very quietly. "You might not want to watch this." His eyes find Arya's, and he raises his hand. "For our sister," he says, his voice low and dark and deep. Arya echoes his smile - and takes his hand as she steps forward.

                "For our sister," she answers.

  
Baelish begs.

  
It does not save him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sansa's speech is of course lifted almost verbatim from "The Door", in the scene in which she confronts Littlefinger at the Moles Town brothel - with some embellishments.


	21. Jon XI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, sorry, sorry.
> 
> Family stuff cropped up in London, meaning I had to go away for a week.
> 
> Updates will now resume.
> 
> ***WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS A GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF TORTURE AND MURDER***

They kill him, just as Sansa instructed.

  
Arya drives him to his knees with a blow across his shoulders, and as a man unused to physical conflict, Baelish goes down at once. Jon kneels in front of him.

                "You sold her to monsters, you allowed her to be tortured and raped, starved and brutalised," he says. It's like he's passing sentence. "You're going to die for it, Lord Baelish, up here in the frozen North, far away from anyone who might possibly consider saving you. You are among wolves now - and wolves are a pack. We protect each other, we fight for each other, we kill to protect ourselves when we must. And you hurt her, you see, which is a crime that cannot be forgiven - will not be forgiven." Jon stands up, his dagger glinting in the light. Behind Baelish, Arya has stripped down to her linen shirt, and it's with a thrill to the blood that Jon realises the pure white of that shirt will be soaked in blood before too long. "I'm not unreasonable, Lord Baelish. Do you have anything you'd like to say?"

                "Are you asking me for my last words?" Baelish asks. His voice is tired, but there's a mocking edge to it. "Rather honourable, for a bastard fucking his own sister."

                "Like I said, I'm not unreasonable," Jon says lightly. "Immoral, perhaps, an illegitimate man born to an honourable one and an unknown woman certainly. But I'm not unreasonable. Your last words won't save you, of course. Our sister wants your head on a silver platter, and we'll give it to her. But - it's always nice to get things off your chest before you die. They didn't wait for my last words when they stabbed me and left me dead in the snow. And I doubt anyone asked Robb for his before they stabbed him in the heart. And - well, Arya, I know you lived through yours, but did you get offered any last words?"

                "No, can't say I did."

                "You at least get a chance. You're working for Cersei Lannister, so do you have anything you'd like us to tell her when you're dead?" Petyr Baelish inhales, as if he wants to taste the air one more time.

                "Just do it."

  
Jon pauses, his brow furrows - and then Arya laughs, a low, manic chuckle.

                "Oh, he thinks we're going to cut his head off." She slides her fingers into Baelish's short hair, gets enough of a grip to yank his head far enough back to enable their eyes to meet. She bends her head over his as if she's whispering to her lover. "It's not going to be that quick for you, Baelish. You have to pay first." She glances up at Jon, and he nods encouragingly at her.

                "Kill him, sweet sister," he instructs. 'Make him scream for you." Arya beams at that, at the permission she never needed. A blow to the back of Baelish's head lays him out full length on the floor. Arya rolls him onto his back, settles astride his waist and raises her dagger with a dreadful, merciless smile.

  
She carves him up, engraves TRAITOR into his chest as he screams. Jon clings to control as best as he can, wills himself not to join her on the floor - why, he cannot say, although it seems very important that he try and hold back, but when Arya starts on Baelish's mouth, it's too much for him to bear. He drops to his knees beside the two of them - Baelish is still trying to fight, but even Arya is stronger than him and he's growing weaker by the minute - and realises that Arya's whispering to him.

                "This is for the lies you told her," she murmurs, as the blade slices the line where lip meets skin. "This is for the promises you made and broke," she says, piercing both his cheeks. "This is for telling her she'd be safe," she adds - and the knife blade flashes as it comes down.

  
It's probably too short a blade to do any fatal damage - but still Jon doubts that having it forced through one's teeth and then twisted once in there is a very pleasant experience. Baelish gurgles as blood bubbles somewhere in his throat. Arya's hands are soaked in blood, and when she holds one out to Jon, he takes it in both of his own, bringing her fingertips to his lips to kiss. The taste of blood and the taste of her - he feels he could be drunk off this combination, that he could burn up in the heat of her gaze. She leans to him, kisses him hard and desperate and unyielding.

                "Bolton died before you could do this," she whispers, holding out her dagger. "Cut his throat, Jon." He laces his blood-slick hand into her hair, yanks her head back to drag his lips over her pulse point. She in her turn yanks free, tangles her own bloodied hand into his hair and whispers into the shell of his ear. "Bathe us both in blood, brother - then have me here. Have me in his blood."

  
He obeys her, because he always will, because she's beautiful with her pupils blown wide by lust and with blood colouring her pale skin such a glorious dark crimson. She is sin - sin and darkness and death, all mixed into one beautiful girl he cannot deny anything to. He thinks, idly and only fleetingly, it's a damn good thing he is not a King and she is not his wife. They'd be lethal with that kind of power.  
  
He cuts Baelish's throat - deep enough to be fatal, but not deep enough to kill him instantly. It's how she told him she liked to kill - so I can hear them drowning in their own blood. That's how she'd described it, back at Castle Black.

  
He kisses her as Petyr Baelish gargles out his dying breaths, kisses her fiercely. She moans into his mouth and bites his bottom lip and brings her bloodied hands up to run over his shoulders, his back, his neck and through his hair. For his part, he brings bloodied fingers to press patterns and pinch streaks along the white expansion of her shirt, marking the linen as he plans to mark her skin.

  
The voice in the back of his mind tells him he's forgotten something, something important - but for the life of him, he cannot say what it is, doesn't care what it is, not while Arya's going sweet and pliant while he bears her down onto the floor. The haze in her eyes, the way she clings - it's just like after they killed Ramsey, except this time, this time there's no sister to free, no guards to worry about, and he can take his time with her. He can strip her down to nothing, take every stitch off her, alternate caresses with sharp slaps and pinches.

  
Her little cries mount up, and she squirms and sobs beneath him as he peppers the unblemished pallor of her inner thighs with little bites. She arches into his touch, whimpers out loud until he slaps the side of her hip sharply.

                "Hush," he orders her, his voice dark and cold. "Patience."

                "Jon," she whines in response, then "Please," as he sinks his teeth into the soft, yielding flesh over her hip.

                "Please what?" he asks, raising his head. She props herself on her elbows, meets his eyes.

                "Please touch me," she begs.

                "I am touching you," he teases. It gets him an indignant growl, the arching of her hips. "Impatient," he reproves. "Wait, sweet sister."

  
By the time he puts his mouth to her cunt, she's glistening with wet, her thighs are trembling just a little, and she's begging him in between curses, sobs and cries of pleasure. It's been too long since he's tasted her. He opens his eyes while his face is buried in her sweetness, lets his eyes drink in the sight of her writhing under him. She's so beautiful naked, especially when her skin is marked with blood and her pallor almost gleams between the crimson lines and smudges.

  
He gets himself inside her almost as soon as her peak dies down, her limbs languid and pliant.  
"Perfect," he hisses from between gritted teeth. "You're so perfect for me, Arya, so good." Arya makes a noise that sounds almost like a whimper, grabbing his shoulders to bury her face against his neck, mumbling something. For a moment he thinks she dislikes his words until he manages to make out what she's saying.

                "Yes, more, Jon, please."

                "Such a good girl for me," he mutters, moving his hand from bracing himself against the floor to wrap just lightly around her throat. He exerts no pressure, just holds her. "So good, doing as I say and following my instructions. You like it, don't you?"

                "Yes, Jon, Jon, oh Gods, want to be good - please -" She pulls him closer, drags his full weight down to lie on her, brings her knees up to cradle his waist with her thighs. He can't really thrust like this, not lying so close to her but it doesn't matter judging by her mounting cries.

                "That's it," he murmurs into her ear. "Come for me, let me feel you, that's a good girl -"

  
And she comes, peaks so suddenly and so hard around him that it surprises him into orgasm too, as he rocks into her one final time and stills, groaning out his pleasure as he spends himself inside her. She clings onto him with arms and legs, keeps him against her until his back and shoulders are aching too much to ignore and he has to roll away. She almost whimpers at it, follows him at once to press herself against his side. He holds her tight until she stops trembling, kisses her hair and assures her that she's good.

  
When she pulls back and he gets a look at her, her eyes are clear again, clear and bright. She kisses him, demanding and heated and then gestures at Baelish.

                "Let's give him to her, and call the wolves," she says.

  
They hand over Baelish's head and Arya calls for a bath to be brought to their chamber. He washes her hair for her, watches as the blood flows out of it like rust on metal, relaxes back into her hands whilst she returns the favour a while later. Back in their own bed for the first night in nearly two weeks, he ties her hands behind her back with her own sword belt and fucks her hard enough to make her scream, hard enough that when he's done there are fingertip bruises on both of her hips and her wrists are rubbed raw by the edges of the leather that binds them.

  
He trails his fingers over every mark once he's done, presses the bruise on her neck hard enough to make her wince.

                "Mine," he growls when she struggles a little at the press of fingers. He pins ger wrists to the bed with one hand and uses the other to press it again. "Mine, Arya. Mine to mark, mine to claim - and mine to love," he finishes, dips his head to kiss her. She kisses back and nods.

                "Yours," she agrees. "Forever."

  
He likes the way that sounds, he thinks as he watches her sleep later on, his own sleep evading him again. Despite the emotion of the day, sleep is beyond his grasp just now. At least he knows why. It's Robb.

  
Knowing that he's within grasping distance of a man who will absolutely and innately understand exactly what it's like to die and come back to life at the hands of a religion he'd known nothing or very little of is agony. He has a hundred questions for Robb, a thousand tiny details he wants to compare, just to see if they're the same - or if Melisandre really has dragged a monster from the void. A knock at the door breaks his train of thought and he goes to it before the noise can disturb Arya.

  
Robb is pale against the ruddy brown of his beard, his cheekbones shadowed and highlighted by the flickering torch he holds.

                "We need to talk," he says. "I need you," he admits quietly, as Jon opens his mouth to tell him he's not interested in another argument about Arya. "You're the only one who might understand." Jon nods.

                "Where?"

                "Here," Robb says, gesturing at the empty corridor. "We're far enough away from Sansa and Theon that we won't wake them and if we're quiet, we won't wake Arya either." His blue eyes find Jon's dark ones. "I think I understand now. A bit."

                "What brought that on? You've changed your tune."

                "I want to ask you - how it felt," Robb says, changing the subject completely. "When you died."

  
Jon takes a deep breath, and nods. He and Robb sit down on the chilled floor, face to face and eyes on each other.

                "It was cold," Jon begins, staring at Robb. "It was so cold."


	22. Arya XI

Arya wakes up with the dawn, to find weak sunlight struggling through the window and Jon sitting by the fire. She sits up, yawning and he looks up to smile at her.

                "Good morning, sweet sister."

                "Morning," she groans, stretching.

                "If you want breakfast, you'll have to get up," he tells her. She throws back the furs and sits up, smoothing her hair as best as she can with just her hands.

                "I need to stop getting blood on all my shirts," she announces. "This is my last spare."

                "I'm low too. Faceless Men teach you how to sew by any chance?" She snorts derisively.

                "No, astonishingly not." He laughs, and she scrutinises him closely as she pulls on her jerkin.

                "You look cheerful this morning," she comments.

                "I spoke to Robb last night," he tells her, and she pauses in the act of buckling on Needle.

                "Oh?" she asks, trying to sound casual. She fails even to her own ears.

                "Not about us," he says. "About - dying."

                "Oh," she says again, this time in a completely different tone of voice. She finishes fastening her boot laces and looks at him. "Did it help?"

                "Yes," Jon answers her, with an honesty that cuts down like a knife. "Because he understands. He knows exactly what it's like."

                "Good," she says softly. He looks his surprise and she laughs softly, going over to plonk down in his lap. He winds his arms around her at once. "Did you expect me to be angry, or jealous, that you'd spoken to him and not to me? No. He will understand better than me, because he's lived it, hasn't he? I can't understand, not fully anyway. I can understand how it makes you feel - but not what it feels like deep down." She runs a hand over his hair, dipping into his curls to squeeze his nape gently. "If you and Robb can find that understanding together, even find any understanding together - that's great. It's what you need, you have to talk about this or it'll destroy you. And while I would always, always listen if the day comes when you feel you can tell me everything - because I know you haven't, Jon, not really - then I'll listen to you, hold you, whatever you need from me when that moment comes. But while you can't - I'm glad to know you have him."

  
She is still wary of Robb herself, still bristling at the peremptory way he'd swept in and tried to just resume his stand as head of the family without bothering to try and understand the different dynamics now at play; but she's still glad he's apparently tried to mend the fence with Jon. He does not try and approach her, even though they all have breakfast together in Father's old solar, which Robb has apparently taken as his own bedroom. Sansa and Theon, it transpires, have moved themselves into Robb's old bedroom and they're using the old Lord's bedchamber as some kind of joint headquarters between Sansa and Robb.

  
Whatever else Sansa told Robb when he'd turned up, he'd obviously taken her story about the White Walker's absolutely seriously. He's getting ready for war, and Jon is immediately pressed into a war council with the pair of them, to tell all he knows about fighting undead ice demons. She refuses to join them.

                "I don't know a damned thing about war," she says bluntly when Robb tries to insist she'd be welcome. "And I sure as the hells don't know anything about negotiating with Lords to send armies. Just tell me the pertinents. I'm going to go and practise." She's closing the door when Robb turns to Jon to ask "practise what" and elects to leave before Robb can be told and start having several fits.

  
She swings Needle around a bit before deciding she wants something more focused, more challenging. One of the men who turned up with Robb loans her a bow and arrows when she insists he do so, but fairly speedily vanishes when, annoyed by his almost nervous hovering, she asks if he's hanging around because he wishes to be the target.

  
It's been far too long since she practised this. She can hit the bulls-eye, but only if she pulls back and then takes several deep breaths - too long a time to aim. Tom from the Brotherhood had always warned her about that. Enemy won't just stand there waiting. Shoot fast or don't bother at all. She keeps practising, forcing herself to allow only one deep breath before she looses the arrows.

  
It's been several attempts before she allows herself a growl of frustration over how poor her efforts are.

                "Start pulling back before you raise the bow fully." The voice makes her jump, having believed herself alone other than the occasional passing guard. She looked behind her - and saw Theon, of all people, withdrawing back into the shadowy horse stall. She smiles tentatively at him.

                "Er - like this, do you mean?" she asks, pulling the string back without an arrow in it as she raises it to her face. He nods hesitantly, edging forward again. Seeing the state of him makes her gut twist as she compares this Theon with the old Theon - confidence verging on cockiness, always running his mouth - and she struggles to keep her voice and manner neutral.

                "Touch your mouth too. With your thumb." He's lost her now.

                "Can you - would you show me?" Theon pales a little, shakes his head frantically - and starts retreating again. Cursing to herself, Arya puts a hand out towards him. He reminds her of a frightened kitten - no sudden movements, she suddenly thinks, remembering how she'd once chased cats around King's Landing. "I'm sorry," she says. "Did I say something wrong?" In answer, Theon removes his hands from where he's tucked them into his armpits and Arya can't stop the wince when she sees them. She hangs the bow off the arrow stand and turns to him, her hands open and in front of her to show him they're empty. Approaching him slowly so she doesn't spook him, she takes his hands in her own - and whilst he flinches a little, he doesn't stop her or pull them back. His hands are freezing under her own.

  
Both his little fingers are missing, the third and second on his right hand - the hand he'd pull a bow with, she realises - are too short and twisted into the bargain. The thumb on his left hand is also gone. She looks from his hands to his face. He's staring at the ground, all his old pride is nowhere to be seen. The same fierce protectiveness she feels for Sansa rears up in her, and she feels a renewed rush of hateful fury for Bolton.

                "I cut off his hands first," she tells Theon, her voice as quiet as she can make it. "Bolton, I mean."

                "D - did you?" Theon stammers, casting a nervous, darting glance at her before looking away again.

                "Yes. He did this, I suppose?" Theon nods.

                "For disobeying," he says, in a thin, broken voice. Arya gives an incoherent growl of rage, she can't help it - and Theon flinches again.

                "I'm not angry with you," she hurries to say, tightening her grip on his poor, mangled fingers. "Never with you."

                "Sorry," Theon mutters. "Sorry, sorry, stupid Reek -" She does the only thing she can think of to do. She yanks him into a hug against her, draws his head down to her shoulder. He goes limp, drops to his knees - and she goes with him. As soon as she's in such a position as to be slightly taller than he is, he burrows against her, shaking in her arms.

                "Your name," she says, her voice not quite steady, "is Theon Greyjoy. Not Reek. Never Reek. Never feel you have to apologise for me for having reactions you can't help." A broken sob issues from the face buried in her jerkin.

                "He - he hurt me every day, Arya," Theon mumbles. "Now I'm useless. He broke my hands so I'd never hold a bow or a sword again, he hurt my feet so I can't run or even walk easily. He made me useless as a man." Her heart breaks a little and she can't bear it.

                "Let me see your hands again?" she asks, shakily. "Please?" He pulls back enough to show her and she takes them, running her fingers over the twisted joints of his fingers, and the relatively whole fingers of his left hand. "Could you - your left hand is better than your right," she says, trying not to shove her feet into anything too sensitive. "Perhaps you could relearn to shoot using that hand on the string? Could you grip the bow with your right hand - as you do still have the thumb there?" Theon shrugs a little helplessly.

                "I - I don't know."

                "Why don't we try?" she suggests gently. His eyes widen a little.

                "I - I am not permitted weapons, weapons are for men not for Reek - sorry," he whispers, looking at her with frightened eyes, obviously remembering her insistence that his name is Theon.   
"You're not in trouble," she says softly, although it galls her to have to reassure him that nobody is going to hurt him for making mistakes. "You don't need to apologise." She racks her brains to think of what to say about the weapons. "Theon, do you think if someone kills someone else, the killer is the stronger?"

                "Yes, unless they're a coward." _Father used to say that_. The thought is so powerful it nearly snatches the breath out of her lungs.

                "Exactly," she says, her heart pounding. "Then that makes me stronger than Bolton, doesn't it?" Theon nods hesitantly, confusion all over his frightened face. "Well, I say you are a man - and you can bloody well have weapons if you want them," she says. To her absolute astonishment, she sees Theon's lips twitch in the very beginnings of a smile.

                "Alright," he whispers. "Can I try?"

  
His grip is a little loose, he can't quite manage to pull the string all the way back - but he can do it. She beams at him.

                "You did it!"

                "I - I didn't have the grip -" he starts nervously.

                "No, not yet," she says, determined to encourage him. "But that's strength, Theon, not skill. If you built it up, you'd have it. You need to eat more," she says firmly. "And perhaps you could talk to the Maester? Perhaps he can do something for your hands? Or give you some exercises, perhaps?" When he looks very nervously at her, she adds what she hopes will be the clincher. "I could come with you? Do all the talking? And Sansa could come too?" He nods hesitantly.

                "If you want me to?" It's a question.

                "Never mind what I want. Is it what you want? You're allowed to say no, Theon. You can always say no." His eyes widen, almost as if he hadn't even considered that as an option.   
"Then - then - can I think about it?" She nods immediately. Before she can speak again, he does so - and his voice is the tiniest shade stronger. "Can - can I show you what I meant about touching your mouth?" he asks.

                "Of course!" she says, beaming. "Just move me around as you like." She pulls the bow back, he tentatively pushes her hand so the bend in her thumb touches the very corner of her mouth. He pushes her elbow down too, so her forearm is in a straight line, running parallel to the ground instead of up in the air at an angle.

                "Now - you try," he says, taking a little step back. "Inhale as you pull back, exhale as you shoot." It's not the bullseye - but it's the very edge of it. She gapes in surprise.

  
When she turns back to Theon, he's gone. Still, she can't help but think she made damn good progress today, and it eases some of the hot, tight feeling in her chest as she collects up her arrows. She's still practising when a guard - one of Robb's comes rushing over to her.

                "Lady Arya -"

                "Not Lady!" she snaps.

                "My apologies, ma'am," the guard pants. "But there's a party on the road to Winterfell - they're Wildlings, I think -" Tormund, she realises at once, and takes off running to the top of the gatehouse to the guard post. She squints against the wind and fancies she can just about make out Tormund's fiery red beard.

                "Let them in, and inform my brother's and sister that we have visitors," she says shortly. "Tell Jon Tormund is here," she adds for good measure. "He'll understand."

  
She's in the courtyard when they come in, and she recognises Davos and Tormund. She glances round for Jon, Robb or Sansa but sees no sign of them, so takes it upon herself to be the welcoming party.

                "Ser Davos," she bellows over the noise and chaos of the arrival. "Tormund!" Both of them look up at her greeting, and Tormund charges forward with a grin all over his face. He sure as hell doesn't try to bow, or call her my lady or do anything but sweep her off her feet in a big bear hug. She laughs at him.

                "Little spearwife," he says solemnly, setting her back down. "You taken good care of him?" She shrugs nonchalantly.

                "Well I haven't seen him in a few days but I assume he's still alive," she quips. Tormund grins.

                "Good girl."

                "I sent for him," she tells him and Davos, who's listening keenly too. "He should be here -"

                "Davos! Tormund!" It's Jon's voice, and Arya steps aside to allow them to do some manly back slapping. She spies a flash of Sansa's hair on the walkway and goes up to her, leaving Jon and an uncertainly hovering Robb - who follows her with his eyes - to it.

                "Hello," Sansa says softly, watching the babble in the courtyard with keen eyes. "So - those are Wildlings?" she asks, and Arya grabs onto the conversation starter happily.

                "Not all of them," she answers. "The man in the black with the grey beard? That's Ser Davos Seaworth - he was Stannis Baratheon's man. And then everyone in the grey furs are Wildlings, yes."

                "Do you know them all?" Sansa asks curiously, her eyes sweeping over the group below her.

                "Not by name, but by sight," she answers. "I know Tormund best - the one with the red hair. Just as a head's up, he'll tell you you've been kissed by fire at some point. Possibly several times." Sansa smiles faintly.

                "Because of my hair?"

                "Yes."

                "Why do you know Tormund best?" Sansa asks, looking a little more relaxed.

                "I used to spar with him at Castle Black. He was the only one who could put me on my arse."

                "I'd like to see that," Sansa says drily.

                "Oh thanks, I love you too," Arya returns, grinning. They fall into silence for a moment, watching Jon introduce Robb. It's Sansa who breaks it.

                "Father would be proud of us," she says quietly. "Of all of us. We've all changed so much but we've all survived. We're ready to defend the North and her people. He'd be proud of what we're doing here."

                "I hope so," Arya answers quietly.

                "I have to believe he would," Sansa adds. Arya glances at her.

                "Sansa," she asks, tentatively. "Can you help me with something?"

                "Anything," Sansa says at once, turning to her. Arya takes a deep breath.

                "It's about Theon." She explains what happened at the archery targets. "It's his hands," she finishes. "I think he can relearn to shoot using his opposing stance, but we need to work on his grip. He didn't seem too keen on seeing the Maester but - I want to help him."

                "What did you have in mind?" Sansa asks. She's long since stopped watching the men still milling about the courtyard.

                "We need to feed him up, obviously - feed both of you up. And he needs to be dressed more warmly - and that's where you come in." Arya takes a very deep breath then. There was a time, not so long ago, when she would have preferred to jump off the gatehouse head-first rather than ask this. "I want to help make him a few things but the only thing I've ever sewed up properly was a gash in someone's leg. Can you teach me how to sew?"


	23. Jon XII

They talk for hours, he and Robb, sat against the walls of the corridor.   
  
"I can't sleep," Robb says. "Not often anyway. Not for long. I want to. I want to, I want to sleep and be normal but I just lie there, staring up at the canvas or the sky or the ceiling and I can't stop remembering."   
  
"I can't either," Jon answers. "I don't even try now, but I know what it's like. I know how it feels to be the only one awake whilst the world sleeps and it's too dark to go out and swing a sword." Robb manages a grin.   
  
"I always had company of a sort. A man to keep watch with me, someone to talk to at least."   
  
"The men at Castle Black were afraid of me," Jon admits. "They didn't trust the Priestess who brought me back, because of what she did. Burning people alive to sacrifice them to her Red God."  
  
"Thoros was never like that, not that I saw anyway. He was good."   
  
"Going to convert?" Jon asks. Robb grins again.   
  
"No. Are you?"   
  
"Not after the things she did," Jon says flatly. "I won't follow a God who demands a monstrosity like burning people alive." Robb nods.   
  
"I don't know that I believe in the Gods anymore," Robb murmurs. "Not now. I woke up alone, Jon. Alone in the dark and there was no Heaven, not one let alone seven of them. I thought it might be the hells for me, I was racking my brains to think of what I'd done to deserve it - but there was just nothing. No light, no sound, no scent. Just the blackness. Was it the same for you?"   
  
"Yes. I could hear - whispering, though. Or a breeze. Something was in the void with me, and I think I brought it back." Robb looks at Jon, his eyes inscrutable in the torchlight. "You seem normal," Jon whispers. "I'm not. I crave blood, Robb, to touch it, see it spilt. And I crave her too. I don't know if that's part of it but I think the Watch had a point when they called me a monster."  
  
"You're not a monster," Robb says, flatly.  
  
"How do you know?"  
  
"Because I've seen the way you look at Arya," he answers amd Jon jolts. Whatever else he had expected, that was not it. "Monsters don't love," Robb continues. "And there was a time I looked at my wife like that. Like they're the entire world and everything in it, like nothing else matters even slightly while you look at them. You look at Arya like that. Like she's the only the only thing that you can see. And the way you kiss her, the way she kisses you. I have no idea what her story is but she loves you. And Arya would never have fallen in love with a monster. She didn't ever trust Joffrey, do you remember?"   
  
"Oh, hated him," Jon agrees. Something that feels warm spreads out from his belly at Robb's words. "She always was the sensible one," he says, thinking it's the safest thing to say.   
  
"And that's something nobody has said about Arya ever." They catch each other's eyes then and Jon laughs because he can't help it. Robb does too and for that single shining moment, they're boys again, laughing at a prank or a successful mission to the kitchens to steal cake.   
  
"She's great," Jon says softly. "She's gone through so much, so much shit, she's found a way to survive. She's lived through stuff that would have made both of us run like hell for as long as possible in the opposite direction. She's brave, and strong, and so beautiful."   
  
"I know. She's dangerous though."   
  
"Bloody lethal," Jon agrees, laughs again at the shock on Robb's face. "It's part of why I love her, I think. Knowing that she could carve me up and walk away without me managing to get a scratch on her." He gives Robb a curious glance. "What was - what was your wife like?"   
  
"Talisa?" Robb breathes the name like some kind of prayer. The silence drags on, and Jon can see the pain playing across Robb's face.   
  
"You don't have to -" he begins tentatively, but Robb's talking now, his eyes closed.   
  
"She was fiery too," he says. "She was a nurse. She went around the battlefields afterwards, patched up anyone who lived - regardless of whose side they fought on. I found her on the field after Oxcross - a Lannister man with an infected foot. I tried to tell her she should be treating the Northeners and boy, did I get told exactly where I got off. She interrogated me about what the point of the war was. What quarrel did I have with a conscripted fisherman in the Lannister army, what I thought I'd get out of killing Joffrey - would it bring back Father if I cut Joffrey's head off, who did I think would be king after Joffrey died? Couldn't answer, obviously, hadn't thought that bloody far ahead. I went off to war with about two plans in mind - kill Joffrey, get the girls back. Talisa - Talisa made me think. She was beautiful even when she was exhausted, sweating and covered in blood and dirt and smoke. She never took orders from me, she challenged me at every turn. And I would have tried to get the moon for her, if she'd asked me for it." He raises eyes to Jon that are so full of grief, it hits him like a punch to the gut. "She was carrying my child when they killed her."   
  
"Seven hells," Jon swears.   
  
"Indeed. I don't know," Robb says. "Maybe this is one of the hells. Maybe being forced to live on, knowing in my head - I'll never kiss her again, I'll never hold her to me again and I'll never see my child grow. She would have been an excellent mother. She knew both sides of life you see, the nobility and the smallfolk. I kept count," Robb admits lowly. "In my head. Followed what would have been the moons of her pregnancy, found when our child would have been born, then counted the passing years. Our child - whoever they might have been - would have seen four namedays by now. Perhaps we'd have already had another, perhaps she'd be carrying another."   
  
  
  
Robb has had more than just his own life stolen, Jon realises, and suddenly his throat is burning like he's swallowed a hot coal whole. He's had his future snatched away from him too, his chance at being a father, a husband, a King.   
  
"If I could give her back, I would," he says, knowing it's not enough.   
  
"Thank you," Robb murmurs.   
  
"When you went off to war, I nearly deserted," he tells Robb, because he's desperate to try and say something, anything that might be of some comfort, however small. "I wanted to be with you, fight with you."   
  
"Really?"   
  
"I was on the horse, riding away," Jon admits. "My friends stopped me, pointed out you'd be obliged to cut my bloody head off, that I'd taken vows I could only be free of through my death. But I wanted to be with my brother, stand by your side as you sought vengeance for our family."  
  
"It means a lot to know that," Robb says. "To know how much you were prepared to risk to be at my side - thank you. Although I would have had to cut your head off."   
  
"Yeah but I suppose we could have had fun before that. It's what we always dreamed of."   
  
"When we were green boys who didn't know any better," Robb retorts. "Ser Rodrick used to call us that."   
  
"Yes, frequently and loudly," Jon answers, remembering.  
  
"I heard Theon had killed him," Robb says. Jon shifts a little uncomfortably against the wall.  
  
"Theon was - in an impossible position," Jon says, awkwardly. Robb nods, runs a hand over his face.   
  
"I put him in it. I should never have sent him back to Pyke. I should have kept him with me, sent someone else." He glances at Jon curiously and Jon wonders what's going through his mind. He's enlightened just moments later. "Sansa tells me you and Arya saw him after you freed her from Bolton, and it was you decided he wasn't to die for his crimes."   
  
"He's paid for what he did, Robb, paid a thousand times over. Arya pointed out it would be like us killing a baby,or a kitten. And - Sansa says he did not kill the boys." Robb nods.   
  
"She told me too. If - if they have survived, you sent ravens to every major house. Word will be spreading that you have retaken Winterfell, with the girls. If they're alive and in the country, they should hear. And perhaps they'll find their way home."   
  
  
  
It's a vain hope, but it's at least hope of a sort. It's a hell of a lot more than either of them thought they'd ever have. They sit in silence for some minutes, before their concersation - perhaps inevitably - winds back around to he and Arya. Jon mentally prepares himself to listen, to let Robb get his entirely understandable hurt, anger and disgust off his chest - but it's a waste in the end.   
  
"Can I ask you what you and Arya plan to do?" Robb starts, as his opening salvo. "Sansa has told me Arya's sworn her sword to her, taken the oath and everything. Have you considered doing so?"   
  
"Not yet," Jon answers, truthfully. "I'll kill to protect this family, Arya will too, and neither of us will lose a second of sleep over it. I didn't think an oath was necessary from me."   
  
"But Arya thought it was?" Robb questions, looking closely at Jon - too closely, as he feels himself flush under the scrutiny.  
  
"Sansa heard - something." Robb just raises his eyebrows and Jon knows he had better tell the full truth. "Sansa heard Arya and I having sex," he amends. "And Arya and I - need certain things. It was loud and followed a physical altercation." Robb's fists are clenching.   
  
"Did you hit her?"   
  
"Only because she wanted me to. And in fairness, she hit me first. Robb, I swear I never do a damn thing to Arya she doesn't want me to do. Ask her if you don't believe me. But the point is, is that Sansa heard us get - well, violent, I suppose. It understandably frightened her and I regret that deeply. She saw me with bruises around my neck and she asked that Arya and I - keep a little distance from her, keep what we do private and not show up with visible bruises every day. Arya swore her sword because she knew that we couldn't go back to being the family we were. What she and I do - it's a sin and we both know it, but it's what we want. It's the first time either of us has had the chance to be selfish and greedy in years - and we've taken it by taking each other."   
  
"You know you can't marry her," Robb says bluntly. "Not in any legally recognised ceremony anyway - neither the faith of the old gods or the new accept incest between brother and sister."   
  
"I know."   
  
"And if she one day wishes to end your affair and marry elsewhere? She'll be ruined, Jon." Jon refrains from pointing out that Arya lost her maidenhead long before she gave herself to him and technically, therefore, he is not the one responsible for 'ruining' her. That's Arya's information to give or not give.   
  
"She doesn't want to marry," he says instead. "She's made that abundantly clear."   
  
"Have you considered her reputation at all?"   
  
"She's not a piece in a bloody game, Robb. What, are you planning to marry her off to form some alliance? Suggest that to her, go on. When she's finished flaying you alive, you'll understand why her reputation is the last thing either of us considered." Jon has to make an effort to keep a grip on his rapidly rising temper. It won't do for this to end in another argument.  
  
"Sansa already explained that to me. Admittedly she didn't put it quite like that, but she made it clear." Jon takes several deep breaths before he responds.  
  
"I would marry her if I could, and if she wanted it too," he admits. "But she's already expressed her views very clearly." Robb sighs, looks straight at Jon despite the flush on his cheeks.   
  
"Have you considered the very real possibility you could get a child on her? With winter a breath away and with this tale Sansa had to tell me about White Walkers?"   
  
"She told you that?" Jon says, starting a little. "And you - you believe me?"   
  
"You're my brother. You've never lied to me, nor have you ever been given to hallucinating or flights of wild fancy. I believe you. But we're talking about Arya now. There's nothing I can do about an army of the dead in the small hours of the night."   
  
"I've considered it," Jon says, not needing Robb to repeat his words - or give him that vaguely accusatory look again. "I - Arya mentioned someone tried to kill her. They stabbed her in the belly, Robb, twisted the blade in there. I suppose there's a chance it's - damaged her."   
  
"A chance? You're pinning your hopes on her not conceiving on a chance? Have the two of you - is she -" Robb trails off, embarrassment at talking of his little sister in this context evidently getting the better of him. Jon scrubs a hand over his face.  
  
"I know how reckless it is. I know what sort of stigma follows a bastard child around, don't think I have forgotten what it was like to grow up hearing myself referred to as Ned Stark's bastard, to have your mother look down her nose at me, to be excluded from every major feast because of it being a bloody insult to seat a bastard with the nobility. Do you think I enjoyed growing up like that, to be the one black stain on our Father's name, to be here as a constant bloody reminder to every bloody cunt who looked down on me?" When Robb recoils slightly, Jon recalls himself a little. He can feel himself baring his teeth, he can only imagine what he looks like. He runs a hand over his face, wills himself to calm down, to step back from the abyss of his rage. "I know all that," he says, making an effort to control his voice, forcing it into neutrality. "And do you know the worst thing, Robb? I want it anyway," he confesses, laying down his greatest secret. He raises his eyes to Robb's face and sees the shock there.   
  
"You mean -"  
  
"Yes," Jon confirms, hating himself for it. "I want a child with her."   
  



	24. Arya XII

That night, with the new arrivals fed and watered and safely settled into Winterfell, Arya wakes in the small hours. For once, Jon is asleep beside her, his face pale against the darkness of his hair and beard. He looks peaceful, and she allows herself to reach out and touch his cheek gently, tuck a lock of hair away behind his ear. He doesn't stir.   
  
  
  
In the silence of the small hours of the night, it doesn't take her long to be nearly asleep again.   
  
  
  
Outside, Nymeria howls long and loud, and Arya jolts upright. She'd thought she'd dreamed the first one and it had woken her. Now it looks like she was wrong. A feeling of quiet unease is settling on her, as if something new is coming. The view over the Wolfswood from her window gives her no answers, but the howl comes again from somewhere. Jon doesn't even twitch and she rolls her eyes whilst she pauses to pull boots and cloak over her nightshirt and leggings before picking up Needle and slipping out.   
  
  
  
The air in the courtyard smells of oncoming snow and the temperature is nearly as low as it was at the Wall. She wraps the cloak tighter over her shoulders, wishes she'd stopped to put on more than just the cloak before she left. Nymeria howls again, but this time at least Arya can tell where it's coming from. It sounds like Nymeria's outside the walls. With a sigh for what she's almost sure now is just her over-active imagination and Nymeria sensing the coming snow, Arya walks back up the stairs to the lookout, and rolls her eyes when the guards up there snap to attention.   
  
"Call me my Lady, and I'll push you both over the edge," she warns, and they nod.   
  
"Are you alright?" one of them asks her, darting his eyes downwards and then snapping them back to her face when he realises how scantily clad she is. "Come by the fire? Warm up a little?" he offers, and she moves gratefully into the circle of warmth.   
  
"Snow's coming," she says, nodding towards the east. Clouds are massing there, blocking out the stars. The older guard nods.   
  
"'Fore dawn, I reckon." Nymeria howls again.   
  
"How long has she been doing that?" Arya asks.   
  
"Not long. Reckon she can sense the weather?" the older one asks.   
  
"She never has before, not as far as I know. She doesn't sound afraid."   
  
"There's one keeps answering her," the younger guard says suddenly. Arya stares at him. "Listen. She howls, then -"   
  
  
  
It's very faint, but there is another howl - coming from the east. Not caring at all about how cold it is outside the circle of the fire, Arya rushes to the battlements to peer over them. It's too dark - but are those torches? Nymeria's howl rises again - and for the first time, Arya closes her eyes and tries to reach Nymeria while she's awake.   
  
  
  
She feels an uncomfortable tightness, almost inside her head and opens her eyes to find herself outside the gates - and walking on four legs. She can feel Nymeria in her mind, feel - excitement? Longing? Something like - it's him.   
  
  
  
With a gasp, she finds herself back on the walls, slumped on the floor with both guards staring at her in a mixture of horror and trepidation. She pants out an order even as her mind races. What has she just done?   
  
"Wake my brothers," she gasps. "Go!" she adds fiercely, when they both just stand there gaping at her. The younger guard bolts, leaves her in the wary company of the older. "What happened?" she asks him. Her legs are shaking as she fights to regain her footing.   
  
"You - you started shaking, girl. Then you just - fell. We turned you over and your eyes - your eyes were white, girl. Milky. Like a blind man but all over. Ain't never seen the like before." She nods, manages to stand if she leans her weight on the battlements.   
  
"Tell - tell nobody," she orders. "D'you understand? Nobody."   
  
"They'll not hear from my lips," the guard says, his face stoic. She looks at him.   
  
"Are you - did you come with Robb?"   
  
"Aye, I did. Marched to war with him. He found me again after that cursed bloody wedding, whilst I was looking through what was left of his camp for survivors. I was that shocked to see him I nearly ran away in terror. But he was a good man 'fore they killed him, and he's still a good man. Vowed to serve King in the North, I did - and I will, for as long as he lives."   
  
"Good, good," she says vaguely.   
  
"I knew your father too," the guard says quietly. That gets her attention. "I'm old enough to remember him when he was riding off to rebellion to throw down the Mad King. He was a good man too - and he didn't deserve his end."  
  
"No, he didn't," Arya answers quietly, staring unseeing at the tiny points of flickering light.  
  
"He'd be right impressed with you, girl, surviving like you have. Reckon he'd be proud."   
  
  
  
The guard offers no further conversation and so Arya stands in silence, watching the pinpricks of light become undeniable torches in the darkness. When Robb and Jon arrive, both panting - and considerably better dressed than she is - she just points wordlessly. Jon takes in her attire in one searching glance, and pulls her into the cirle of his own arms immediately, wrapping his cloak around them both.   
  
"You're just as cold," she points out, gets a chuckle from him. Robb shifts beside them and steps closer, and he's almost radiating warmth from inside his cloak. So the three of them huddle together, none of them speak, they just watch and wait. She isn't sure how long they stand, silent and unmoving, but it's long enough for every limb to feel stiff and ache.   
  
  
  
The storm clouds seem to be almost chasing the party, from whom they can now hear the sound of hoofbeats on the wind - and the howling between Nymeria and the wolf with them goes on.   
  
"That's another direwolf," Jon says. He's practically vibrating behind her, she can feel it juddering in her bones.   
  
"It's Shaggydog," Arya says, still staring. "Nymeria knows him, I felt it."   
  
"What do you mean you felt it?" Robb asks sharply beside her.   
  
"I was in her - in my head."   
  
"You dreamt it?" Jon asks.   
  
"No. I was awake. But it was like my dreams." Robb makes a tiny convulsive movement beside her but she doesn't care just now. "It's Shaggydog," she repeats.   
  
  
  
And it is. As soon as the party is close enough to make out figures on the horses, and the huge wolf loping alongside, Nymeria darts out, a dark shadow against dark mud. The yelp as the wolves collide is echoing and somehow, Arya feels the happiness inside her bones. She pushes away from Jon and Robb, darts down the stairs to get to the gate before either of them can hold her back. She snatches a torch off the wall and holds it high as she rushes outside the gate, hears Jon curse and Robb issue orders for wary guards to stand aside and allow the newcomers entry.   
  
"Rickon!" she calls out, her voice high and clear. "Rickon!" The horses halt just a little way off, a figure jumps down from one of them.   
  
  
  
So tall, as he moves into the light, all the chubby child she remembers vanished in favour of messy brown curls and her own high cheekbones, with Tully blue eyes gleaming in the light of the torch she still holds aloft. He steps into the light and an uncertain voice says her name.   
  
"Arya?"   
  
"Yes, yes - is that really you?"   
  
"Yes. Er - we heard the news. That Bolton was -"   
  
"Yes, yes, never mind that now. Come inside, it's going to be a hell of a storm soon. Your - friend too."   
  
  
  
They get Rickon inside and a woman wrapped in furs follows them. The fire in the kitchens is lit for cooking already, so they go there, regardless of the outraged Cook who tries to protest at this invasion of his territory. Rickon glances between each of their faces in turn, biting his lip uncertainly.   
  
"I'd heard you were all dead," he says. His voice has broken like she remembers Robb and Jon's doing, the uncertain deep-then-higher quiver of it an ache to remind her of how much they've all missed over the years.   
  
"Not us. Starks are hard to kill," she says, seeing as neither Robb nor Jon seem capable of saying anything. "We thought you were dead."   
  
"Osha and Hodor got us out - me and Bran. We hid in the crypts for days but I don't remember much of it. Just that it was dark, and I wanted mother all the time. We had to hide bdcause of Theon - because Theon brought bad men here and killed people. He killed Maester Luwin, and Ser Rodrick." Arya exchanges looks with Jon, who shakes his head slightly. This probably isn't the appropriate time for this conversation.   
  
"You're Osha?" Arya asks, looking up at the woman.   
  
"Aye, what of it?" she says defiantely. "Protected the little Lord - like he told me to," she says, gesturing at Robb. Arya blinks, looks between them both. Robb is bowing to her.   
  
"I told you to, and you've done so. Anything you desire, you've only to ask for. House Stark owes you a great debt."   
  
"I desire a good bed, good ale and something to eat," the woman answers. "In that order."   
  
  
  
Rooms are found, fires are lit and beds made up for the weary travellers. There will be time, she supposes, to talk to them both in detail, to hear their full story - but for now they must rest and as much as Arya is burning to keep her little brother exactly within her sight, she cannot do it. Jon urges her away, back to their own bed, and practically shoves her into it while he stokes their nearly-dead fore back into burning life and wraps her in so many furs she can barely move or protest.   
  
  
  
It's the knock at the door that stops her punching him when he starts fussing around heating up ale. Robb steps in, shuts the door and looks between them both with something approaching trepidation on his face.   
  
"What is it?" Arya asks him, somehow suddenly fearful. Robb takes a deep breath.   
  
"I saw the two of you murder Baelish," he says, quietly. "And I saw you fuck each other afterwards, beside his corpse."   
  
  
  
Arya's heart skips a beat. _What have we done?_


	25. Jon XIII

Jon elects to break the silence, when it looks like Arya is contemplating making vows of silence and Robb is shifting from foot to foot so much he's in danger of overbalancing and braining himself against the stone floor.

                "I did tell you you might not want to watch," he says. It's half-serious, half an attempt to break the tension in the room. Arya winces visibly, bringing one hand up to massage her temple.

  
Robb, most unexpectedly, laughs.

                "You did. I chose to."

                "Why?" Arya groans.

                "Because I was curious about why Sansa would have promised to let the two of you kill a man. I was curious about what she had told me about what Bolton looked like when you two had finished punishing him." Robb takes a deep breath then, Jon sees him steel himself. "And I wanted to know what you looked like together." He glances to Arya, still sat motionless on the bed, piled with so many furs she looks near-smothered. She meets his eyes, he sees his own curiosity reflected in her grey eyes.

                "Out of curiosity?" she asks Robb, turning to fix him in her gaze. "Or were you watching us for some other reason?"

                "Curiosity. Tranfixtion - like I couldn't not watch. And - I suppose - there was something else." Robb's still standing, awkward and a little lost-looking. The something else hangs in the air, unspoken, obvious, a living and breathing presence none of them can ignore or name.

                "Why don't you sit down?" Jon suggests, jerking his head towards the bed and drawing the still-hot poker from the jug of ale. "I was just about to force some of this down Arya's throat, and if you're here she might not punch me for fussing like an old woman."

                "I'll still punch you," she tells him, even as Robb perches awkwardly at the extreme edge of their bed. "I'll just bide my time. And I hate hot ale."

                "Well then, maybe you'll bloody well think next time you go haring outside in just your shirt." She takes the mug, grimacing at him. Robb takes one too when Jon offers it, looks between them.

                "You two fight like Mother and Father used to fight," Robb says quietly, while Arya's pulling faces over her first mouthful of ale.

                "We're generally a little more physical," Arya mutters. Jon joins the two of them on the bed, leaning himself back against the headboard and watching Robb. Two bright spots of colour are evident in his cheeks.

                "Robb," he says, evenly. "Why else did you watch us?"

                "I - I wanted to see you. Both of you. To see what it was drawing you together."

                "And?" Arya demands, obviously over her embarrassment by now. "Did you see it?"

                "I think so," Robb answers, staring fixedly at the wall by the door and not looking at either of them.

                "What did you see?" Jon asks.

                "Need. Love. Desire."

                "Did it disgust you?" Arya asks him. She thrashes her way out of her nest of furs, leans forward, so close to the back of Robb's neck he must be able to feel her breath on his nape.

  
Jon's not sure if he's jealous or aroused at the sight of Arya close enough to kiss Robb's neck. Or bite it.

                "No."

                "Did it excite you?" Robb turns at that, Jon can see him search Arya's face with his eyes. He'd probably expect a trap too, with someone that lethal so close to his throat.

                "No. It made me jealous." Arya laughs then, a light, mocking laugh, and she relaxes back onto her knees. She reaches out and nudges Jon's foot lightly.

                "As if one jealous fool wasn't enough to deal with. Look Jon, you've got a friend!"

                "Jealous of what?" Jon asks Robb, choosing to ignore Arya's teasing for a moment. Robb drops his eyes to the bed coverings, his fingers plucking almost nervously at a fur.

                "That closeness. The way you held each other. Touched each other. I had that once. With Talisa."

                "Robb," Arya says, almost hesitantly now and with all trace of joking gone from her voice, "what exactly are you saying? Do you want to be touched?"

                "Yes," Robb says. He raises his head and even with him looking at Arya, Jon can see the desperation on his face. "Nobody has touched me since I was woken up. Not to hold me, not to put their arms around me. And how could I ask for it? I'm not supposed - I'm supposed to be strong -" His head is bowing again and quick as a snake, Arya's hand snaps out.

                "Needing to be held does not make you weak," Arya snaps, hooking her fingers under his chin and forcing Robb to look back up. "So here's the question, Robb - who do you want to hold you? Me, or Jon, or both of us?" Robb is looking between them, shock written all over his face.

                "Do you mean it?"

                "Yes," Jon says, answering for Arya. "Of course we do. If you're undecided, I recommend her though," he says, smiling at Arya. "I've never slept so well as I have wrapped up in her arms - and I reckon Sansa would tell you the exact same thing."

                "Sansa?"

                "The night we freed her, the night we killed Ramsey - I went out to hunt down some of his guards and Arya stayed with Sansa. When I got back, Arya had Sansa wrapped up tight and safe and warm - and Sansa slept straight through that night." Robb nods, chews his lip for a moment.

                "You then," he says to Arya, hesitantly. "If you don't - oomph."

  
The sound is forced from him as Arya puts her arms out and yanks him forward into a hug, her arms encircling his shoulders. Robb gasps at it, buries his face in her neck and shakes. Jon can see it, see his shoulders tremble. Robb's half-lying, half-sitting on their bed, his own arms wrapping tightly around Arya's waist as he clings. One of Arya's hands pauses in the act of rubbing a line in Robb's leather jerkin, lifts to beckon him forward.

  
He goes, adds his own arms to the embrace, wrapping both Arya and Robb up close. He presses a kiss to Arya's hair as he does it, trying to tell her silently that he loves her, that he adores her warm heart and tender care, that he will always stand in awe of the contrast between her deadly abilities and loving touches.

  
The hug lasts a long time, both of them holding onto Robb until he stops shaking and then keeping it up until his breathing steadies too. When Robb does pull away, his eyes look a little clearer, his posture more relaxed, and Arya offers him a soft smile, reaches up to smooth his slightly ruffled hair down.

                "Is that better?" she asks him, her voice very gentle. Robb nods.

                "Yes. I - thank you." There's so much feeling in those words, so much happiness, even Jon feels himself touched by it. The offer he makes seems natural to him, like it's obvious.

                "Want to stay tonight?" he asks Robb, but gets a shake of the head in return.

                "No. I - I want to be -"

                "OK," Arya answers, as easily as Jon made the offer. "But you know you just have to ask, right?" Robb smiles at her.

                "I know. Thank you." He slips off the bed, straightens his jerkin. "Er - good night."

                "Good night," Arya tells him, even as Robb slips out of the door and disappears.

  
He sorts out the bedcovers, strips off his shirt, slides under the furs and holds out his arms to Arya.

                "Come here," he says, but it's a gentle invitation instead of the more standard demand. She slides under the covers alongside him, crawls into his open arms to rest her head on his chest. He wraps one arm around her shoulders, the other he brings across his stomach to touch her waist.

                "Jon, I -"

                "Shh. Go to sleep, dear sister," she says, kissing her forehead. "Let me hold you for once. We can talk about it in the morning."

  
The only answer he gets is a deep, even breath. She's asleep, dark lashes making spiky half-circles on her pale cheeks. He smiles to himself, kisses her forehead again.

                "I love you," he murmurs against her skin.

  
He wakes up with a dead arm, a warmth curled against his chest and side and to gently falling snow outside, with a wind rattling the window in it's frame. He grunts with satisfaction, uses what little strength he still has in his arm to pull Arya a little closer. She mumbles something unintelligible, but doesn't stir beyond that, so he turns his mind to thinking about the previous night. Robb's moment of intense vulnerability, Arya's unhesitating embrace, his own flash of bizarre need when he'd had to pull them both into his own arms - it had all made so much sense.

  
He glances down at Arya's sleeping form. She's a whole boiling pot of mixed emotions and then there's a layer of complication on top of that. She's never been vulnerable, not that he recalls, even as a child she was fiercely independent and a wild little thing. She's grown it into an absolute steel core of self-sufficiency, she's learnt to survive alone and now appears to need nothing so simple as a hug. Even after she kills and goes pliant and biddable, she still bites - literally. It still feels a little like holding a direwolf. They might let you pet them, but there's always the very real chance that one day they'll turn around and rip your head off.

  
And yet - she's never, ever refused any of them comfort. She'd been the one to ask Robb if he needed it, she'd offered it to Sansa more than once and she constantly holds him close, sometimes before he even knows it's what he wanted. But she's never asked it of him.

  
He has no more time to dwell on it. Arya stirs in his arms properly now, blinking up at him sleepily. They lie tangled together for a while, not speaking, just breathing in tandem while she traces idle patterns onto his chest with her fingertips. When they do eventually get up, Arya takes the time to dress properly for once, then looks at him levelly.

                "I'm going to ask Tormund to spar with me," she says, quietly. "I need the practise."

                "I'll spar with you," he offers, half-heartedly. She grins at him, but still shakes her head.

                "We can predict each other far too well," she points out. "Wouldn't do us any good. Might see if Brienne wants a round," she continues reflectively. "Be interesting to fight her." Once again, Jon has a nagging sense that there's some history between those two, that something happened once between them. He wants to ask, but isn't certain of how it would be received. She's obviously not telling him for some reason, or he'd already know the story, surely?

  
He chooses to watch her from the walkway over the courtyard, and she shoots him a wink when she sees him there. Davos sees him too, comes to join him up there. For a while, the only sounds between them are the sounds of Arya's little sword crashing against Tormund's axe occasionally.

                "She's a good fighter," Davos remarks presently, watching as Arya uses clever footwork to feint left only to duck right and throw off Tormund's aim.

                "She is," Jon agrees. "And it's a good thing too. War's coming, Davos, and she intends to fight."

                "We need everyone we can get, when the dead come," Davos answers grimly. "If that means we take on Wildling ways and teach girls to fight too - it might make the difference between living and dying." Jon nods.

                "If the Lords ever answer my summons and come here, it'll be down to Robb to persuade them." Davos doesn't answer right away, and when he does it's to make an observation.

                "I never thought I'd live so long as to see two men resurrected from the dead," he says. "To see them both from one family - that'll draw attention at least, if nothing else."

                "I hope so - and yet here it's been half a moon since we killed Bolton, and there's not been so much as a raven."

                "They'll come," Davos tells him. "If only to see you."

  
Jon has to hope so. They'll stand no chance against the dead if nobody comes. Robb and Sansa join them suddenly, Sansa with her thin hand tucked into the crook of Robb's arm, well wrapped up against the snow. It's lessened from storm to light dusting, but it's bitterly cold even under cloaks and gloves. Sansa is beaming, and speaks before Jon can start introducing her to Davos.   
                "We've checked in on Rickon," she says. "Robb told me everything this morning. He's still sleeping, but Osha was awake. We sent her breakfast and a bath. She said she will bring Rickon to the Hall for luncheon if he wakes in time. They've been travelling a long time, she said."

  
Sansa watches Arya with great interest once the introductions are over, Robb with something approaching fear on his face.

                "Where the hell did our baby sister learn to do that?" Robb demands, as Arya flips herself back onto her feet and into a crouch in one smooth, fluid motion. Tormund swings at her again and she rolls forward neatly, presses Needle against his gut. Tormund says something that makes her grin, but they're too far away to make out the words.

                "Faceless Men," Jon answers briefly. "She told me about learning to fight with them."

                "Seven Hells," Robb swears, watching Arya and Tormund start all over again. "Is that - are they using real weapons? Where did she get that sword?" Jon grins.

                "I gave her that," he says. "Before she went South and I went to the Wall."

                "You gave our nine year old sister a sword?"

                "The nine year old sister who could outshoot everyone but Theon and knew more about weapons than Bran? Certainly."

                "Both of you are insane," Robb mutters, still watching Arya closely. "Do you think she could take me?" Sansa answers before anyone else can.

                "Why don't you ask her?"

                "I think I will." Robb waits until Tormund's on his arse again before he calls down. "Arya! Want a challenge?" He draws his sword as he speaks, so she'll be in no doubt. She grins up at him.

                "Certainly. Come down." When Robb's joined her and is safely out of earshot, Jon raises an eyebrow at Sansa.

                "What are you up to?" he demands of her. Sansa smiles at him.

                "I just want to see Robb get first-hand experience of how Arya is absolutely not a child any longer," she says sweetly. "It'll be good for him."

                "Or ruin him," Jon mutters.

  
Sansa just laughs, and Jon turns his attention to Arya and Robb. If nothing else, it should at least be interesting.   
  
Very interesting indeed.


	26. Arya XIII

Robb twirls his sword, offers her a grin.

                "You sure about this?" she asks him.

                "You're good, but you're not that good," he parries back and she laughs, shrugs her shoulders.

                "Alright then, suit yourself. Ready?"

                "Ready," he confirms.

  
They take stances, eye each other. She will let him make the first move, because so often the first move will say the most about a fighting style - whether they're more likely to be the full-frontal, everything-at-once type; or the defend first, attack later kind; or even the kind who plays weak until the opponent gets cocky type. Robb, like so many of the men trained in Westerosi fighting, proves to be the full-frontal kind. He's faster than most though, much faster, and it forces her to be on the defensive far more than she'd like. She prefers to dodge and duck more than defend, because frequently it brings her closer to her opponent and she can then get up under their guard.

  
As it so often does, her short stature works in her favour here - Robb is obviously far more used to fighting men on a height or taller than him, and his sweeps are slightly too wide to be advisable. She sees how he swings out, leaves his front unprotected, knows if she can get inside the swing of the sword she'll be able to choose her target - and starts to look for her way in. It'll have to be when he's bringing the sword back to start his swing, that much is clear, so she'll have to get inside the arc of it and get close enough to him for the sword to be too long to be of any use. So, this will be a test of how fast she can move.

  
Well, she can be quick when she needs to be, the Waif had seen to that. She allows Robb to nearly get several kill shots, blocking at the last possible second in the hopes of making him a little desperate. A desperate fighter is a sloppy fighter, and she can use that to her advantage. She leads Robb on in a fine dance, until his smile has long since become a frown of annoyance and sweat is glistening on him. His free hand also gets involved, balancing him during the wilder shots he's starting to make.

  
That's her chance and she seizes it. Grabbing his wrist and yanking him so he stumbles forwards, she presses Needle against him so the point would go up under his ribs if she put any pressure on it. His eyes widen and she smirks at him.

                "Dead," she murmurs, pressed so close to him the hand holding Needle is squashed between them. He makes no attempt to draw away.

                "Quite," he murmurs in return. For a brief moment, they stay as they are, his blue eyes burning into her.

  
He clears his throat, steps back.

                "I'll win next time," he promises her, his easy smile back in place. She laughs, nods.

                "If you say so." He nods at her, glances up - and a shadow passes over his face. She glances up too, realises she'd forgotten Jon was watching her in the excitement of the challenge. He's not angry. He's not glaring. There's a familiar heat to his gaze.

  
Except this time, his gaze isn't directed at her. He's looking at Robb.

  
In the end, she's so confused by it, she leaves them to spar and goes inside with Sansa - who takes her to the old Lord's solar. Sansa knocks gently at the door.

                "Theon? It's me, with Arya. May we come in?" There's no reply, so Sansa opens it cautiously and puts her head inside. "He isn't here. Come in."

                "Why did you knock?" Arya asks curiously. "Isn't this your bedroom too?" She looks around it searchingly, as she hasn't seen it since they changed everything around. A bed now sits directly before the fireplace, a desk at the end of it. It's cosy.

                "Theon - there are things you don't know. About exactly what Ramsey did to him, I mean. He wouldn't want you to see if we disturbed him." Arya nods, although she doesn't completely understand - probably never will.

                "Fair enough."

                "So," Sansa says, sitting at the edge of the bed. "What did you want to make for Theon?"

                "Um - I was thinking gloves. You know, for his hands. Or if you think that's a bit too advanced for a complete beginner."

                "Have you touched a needle since we left for King's Landing?"

                "Not a sewing needle," Arya says, and Sansa's lips twitch.

                "Then you probably shouldn't start with it. Why don't I teach you something simpler?"

                "Like?"

                "Well, I was talking to Jon earlier while you and Robb were stabbing at each other, and he was bemoaning your collective lack of shirts because they keep - getting ruined." It's Arya's turn to smile, Sansa's diplomacy always oddly endearing. "Linen is easier to learn to sew on than leather," Sansa continues. "So why don't I start you off with shirts and we can work up to gloves?"

  
Arya agrees, and Sansa produces a roll of linen from under the desk. The Gods know where she managed to get it, with winter so close and supplies so low, but she's got it.   
                "Didn't you have plans for this?" Arya asks, rubbing the material between her fingers. It's finer quality than anything she's worn in years.

                "No. We'll start by measuring you."

  
For the first time, Arya actually listens to a sewing lesson. Sansa is infinitely better at explaining the whys and hows than Septa Mordane ever was - or perhaps it's that this time around, Arya genuinely wants to know about it and so is actually paying attention for once. Sansa is patient too, and doesn't compare Arya's work to her own - she just quietly corrects the many mistakes Arya manages to make.

  
Still, by the end of the day, Arya's got a decent shirt out of it. If the hem is a little uneven, and if the seams are a little wavy - well, it's only a shirt. Very few people are actually going to see it. And when Jon sees it, he's unlikely to care about wavy hems and seams. Sansa nods at her, and Arya is slightly confused to see pride on her face.

                "Well done," Sansa says. "For a first attempt, it's excellent."

                "Turns out it's slightly easier than sword fighting," Arya answers. She stands up, buttoning her jerkin over the new shirt. "I'd better go and check on Rickon," she observes.

                "Well it's time for luncheon," Sansa observes. "Shall we go to the Hall first, see if they're there?"

  
They do so, and Rickon is there. He jumps up when Sansa comes in, and she opens her arms to him at once. He approaches her with caution, scans her face. Whatever he sees there, Arya sees the moment he accepts it, and goes willing into her arms.

                "Look at you," Sansa says when they separate, sounding oddly choked. "You look so grown up."

                "You look like Mother," Rickon answers. "I don't suppose -" His voice trails off, and everyone knows what he's going to ask. Sansa shakes her head. Arya can see the tears glittering in her eyes - Tully blue, just like Rickon's own - and turns her head away to look for Robb and Jon.

  
They're both there, seated side by side at the table opposite where Rickon was sat before he went to Sansa. Is it her imagination, or are they sat closer than normal? She goes over to them because she can't bear to hear Sansa break the news that their mother isn't coming home. She sits down beside the Wildling woman, Osha, opposite Robb.

                "Who won?" she asks them.

                "One bout apiece," Robb answers. Beside her, Osha tears bread into chunks to dip into her stew. Arya follows this example, and looks up to meet Jon's eyes.

                "Hard fought, was it?"

                "He's not bad," Jon answers, grinning at her. "Not a patch on you, obviously." Over Robb's indignant spluttering, Sansa and Rickon join them, Sansa dropping down to sit beside Jon and opposite Rickon. Rickon eats like a Wildling, like Osha eats - mostly with his hands and his knife. Arya is impressed when Sansa says nothing, doesn't even look disapproving. A few years ago, she would have had several fits.

  
It's just one more way everything has changed.

                "Do you know how to use a sword?" Robb asks Rickon, once the meal is over. He shakes his head.

                "Osha taught me to use a spear, and a knife. And the Skagosi men taught me how to hunt seals using bow and arrow."

                "Do you want to learn to use a sword, or would you prefer to keep learning with Osha - if she's prepared to stay, that is?" Robb adds uncertainly, glancing at the Wildling woman. Osha shrugs.

                "Nowhere else to go, and I've been with the little Lord since he was nothing much more than a howling babe. Can't go home, not with the Others gathering Beyond the Wall. Can't go back to Skagos, nothing there for me. Might as well stay here in comfort to ride out the winter." Robb nods.

                "Well, Rickon? It's up to you, I suppose."

                "I'll stick with Osha then," Rickon says decidedly. "But I've got a question," he continues, staring round at them all.

                "Go on," Jon invites. Rickon glowers.

                "Why the fuck is Theon Greyjoy still alive and in this castle?"

  
Arya looks up in time to see Sansa flinch, to see Robb and Jon exchange looks. Rickon's eyes are full of confused, hurt anger and rightly so - he'd told them last night that Theon had killed Maester Luwin and Ser Rodrick, he must have actually seen it happen. Arya waits, and waits, while her siblings shuffle feet and look desperately at each other as they apparently try and find a way to explain it to a child.

  
Fuck that.

                "Theon was tortured by Ramsey Bolton for years," Arya says, bluntly. "He's had fingers cut off, toes cut off, had chunks carved out of him like he was a side of venison on the Common Table at a feast. He's got more scars than you've got hairs on your head. He's been beaten and brutalised and tortured until he barely knows his own name anymore." Sansa is blinking frantically at her, as if trying to say _he's too young!_ with her eyes, Robb and Jon are staring with mouth's agape. "I know you remember a Theon who did terrible things, a Theon who killed people you loved - but that Theon died at the Dreadfort at Bolton's hands. He's been punished for what he did. Now he lives." She stands up, glares round at her siblings when she sees nothing but reproachful looks. "He's not a godsdamned baby," she growls. "He's old enough to hunt seals, he's old enough to hear about torture. None of us are children anymore. Sooner you all accept it, happier we'll all be. Osha, Rickon says you can use a knife to fight with. Would you mind teaching me? I can use a knife to kill if he's off guard, wouldn't fancy actually fighting." Osha stands up, follows her outside, and Arya ignores Jon yelling after her. She'll deal with it later.

  
Right now, she has Rickon's childhood to mourn.


	27. Jon XIV

                "What the _fuck_ was that?" he demands, throwing open the door to their bedchamber. From the bath in front of the fire, Arya opens the eye that isn't black.

                "I fought with Osha. Osha won. I had another go and things got physical."

                "I wasn't talking about that," Jon snaps. Injuries in training are too common to be worth much of a comment on them, even if watching Osha wipe up the courtyard with Arya had been terrifying. Mind you, he saw the state of both of them once they were finished, and Osha didn't look much better. For someone who had claimed to have never fought with her fists before, Arya had held her own admirably after demanding the Wildling teach her what to do if she was disarmed along with her opponent. "I was talking about what you said to Rickon," Jon continues, stripping out of his jerkin and tossing it onto the bed for now.

                "What would you have told him? Rickon was angry, Jon - he had a bloody right to be. He saw awful things when he was a godsdamned child, done by someone he'd grown up with - he was owed the truth, not to be fobbed off with half-truths and evasions."

                "He's a child now!"

                "No he isn't," Arya snaps right back at him. She glares at him from the bath, tosses the cloth she's been dabbing her split lip with into the water. She moves to lean against the edge of the bath, tipping her head back. "His childhood died on the same days all of ours did - the day they cut our father's head off, the day his mother rode away with his big brother to go to war over it, the day Winterfell was burnt and he had to run for his life. If Father was still alive the chances are Rickon would have seen a beheading by this time. He took Bran out at ten, after all."

  
At the mention of Bran, some of the fight drains out of Jon.

                "We spoke to Rickon, after you and Osha went outside," he says in a low voice. "He told us Bran was in the company of Howland Reed's children - Meera and Jojen he said. He also said Bran was having - visions." Arya's head comes up at that.

                "Visions? And what do you mean, was?"

                "Dreams," Jon amends. "Rickon can't remember too much, not really. Something about a raven. That's all he could remember. He said that after they had travelled together for a little while, Bran sent him away with Osha. He said that he thought Bran was heading North with the Reeds - and Hodor."

                "There's nothing North of here," Arya whispers. "Just the Wall."

                "Rickon said - Rickon said he thinks Bran was going beyond the Wall."

                "Jon," Arya whispers, and she needs say no more. He knows.

  
Bran could not walk. He was crippled, would have been relying on Hodor and two people not much older than themselves to get him there. And Jon knows better than anyone about what lies beyond the Wall. Jon cannot see how such a boy could have hoped to survive in such a place.

                "We all made it home," Arya says. "I mean - the odds must have been against all of us doing that. I survived on the road for years, sometimes alone. Sansa survived against all the odds. You and Robb literally died, you've made it home. But we made it. He might have survived."

                "Even if - even if he has, if he's Beyond the Wall, Arya, he'll not know we're here. He'll not hear anything. He might stay up there, not knowing anything, and the longer he stays, the greater the chance of something up there killing him." Arya nods.

                "I know that, Jon. I know that. But - Jon, I have to believe there's a chance."

  
There's a vulnerability to her that frightens Jon, because he's never seen her like this before. He's never seen her so hurt, either. She always wins her fights, and he's never seen her with bruises painting her skin purple and black, with such rawness in her eyes.

                "Do you want me to wash your hair?" he offers. Her eyes slide closed. She nods. "Let me take care of you," he urges, when she's still wound up with tension even as he washes her hair as gently as he possibly can. "Just relax, Arya. Let me do this."

  
She relaxes. The tension leaves her in a series of long, juddering shakes. Her eyes stay closed. He could swear her lashes are wet.

  
He sleeps that night again - but he wakes to the moon sailing high across a crisply clear sky, and to a cold and empty bed. He sits upright at once, cursing to himself. The fire is low, but it casts enough light to tell him that she is no longer in the room. All of her clothes are gone, and so has Needle, vanished from it's place on the table alongside Longclaw. He dresses himself quickly, buckles on Longclaw just to be safe - and starts heading down the corridor, aiming for the stairs as he assumes she's gone outside.

  
He hesitates at the top of them.

  
Robb looks too alert to have been asleep when he answers the door to Jon's urgent knocking.

                "Jon?"

                "Arya's gone," he says tersely. "We need to find her." Robb doesn't even question it. He buckles on his own sword-belt as they're heading downstairs, pulling his cloak over his shoulders as they go along.

                "Does she make a habit of this?" Robb asks.

                "Yes, annoyingly frequently. Before Sansa sent us off to find Baelish, I found her in the Wolfwood. She wasn't alone."

                "Who was she with?" Robb's voice is clear and sharp with curiosity.

                "Demons," Jon answers simply. "She was with demons." For the first time, Jon talks about that day. Even he and Arya have never discussed it, never talked about why demons from the void might have called her Princess of Death, why they had said Arya must strike the final blow of the war, why he and Arya were meant to unite fire and ice together. But he tells Robb now. Robb listens, doesn't interrupt even once. "And she was standing in my arms," Jon finishes in a voice barely above a whisper, hoarse and thin. "And she told me that she had seen everyone she'd kill, that she'd be spoken of forever - that she'd be the sword waiting in the dark room."

                "Do you believe it?" Robb asks.

                "Yes. Robb - does she frighten you?"

                "Yes. There's a - ruthlessness, isn't there? That sense you get sometimes, when you look into her eyes and you can see it, how she'd carve your heart out in a second if you set out to hurt her." Robb pauses. "Did she do most of the damage to Ramsey too?"

                "Yes. Him and Baelish. I love it, watching her hurt them but the look in her eyes when she hurts a man, Robb - it chills me sometimes."

                "I saw it, when I watched her murder Baelish," Robb says. They've come to a halt outside the Hall, both of them, but Jon can't be sure who stopped first or how long they've been stood there. "She looked so alive, so happy. Like it was everything to her, like hearing him scream was the best thing that had ever happened to her."

                "She murdered the Frey's for you," Jon says. "Every last man, the talk of it was everywhere."

                "We heard about it," Robb says, obviously reading Jon's unspoken question perfectly. "That a trickster, or a goblin, or a demon who could wear faces had poisoned every man in that Hall and then taken off Frey's face to tell his wife the North remembers. We couldn't work it out, I still can't. She told me she'd poisoned them all, but I haven't had the full story, have I?"

                "No," Jon says honestly. "But it's for her to tell, not me. Even I don't know all of her story. I don't know if she'll ever tell me it." That knowledge comes with a painful pang, an ache deep down that despite everything, there are still parts of Arya she is keeping back from him.

                "Does that bother you?" Robb asks, and his voice is curiously gentle.

                "Yes," Jon says honestly. "I have to wonder why she's holding back. I have to wonder what she's holding back." Robb's hand settles on his shoulder - and is it his imagination, or is that hand very close to his neck?

                "She'll tell you. She'll tell us. She just has to - trust us." Jon laughs, a hollow, bitter sound that drops heavily into the silent castle.

                "She trusts me enough to fuck her," he says. He aims for crude, comes out with bitterness that tastes sour in his mouth. Robb's thumb strokes quickly, gently against the skin of Jon's throat. It was close to his neck then.

                "Don't be stupid," Robb says, his voice some low, unknown timbre that shudders against Jon's bones. "You know there'll be a reason."

                "I know it. Doesn't make it any easier to bear."

  
They resume the search for Arya, Jon taking a torch outside with them. She is nowhere within the castle, nowhere in the stables or outbuildings or the ruins of the glass gardens. She is not in the Godswood, or the Wolfwood as far as Jon can sense. He'd know if she was in there. He had known last time, he would know, does know this time.

                "She's gone," he says, his voice hollow with something that tastes like despair. "Fuck, Robb, she's gone."

                "She can't have gone far -" Jon flings the torch down in a rage.

                "She's gone," he snaps, swinging round on Robb because he's sick to death of the man's calm logic and gentle reassurances. "Do you think it's only sex that ties us? I know her, I can feel her under my skin, and I am telling you that she has gone!"

                "Don't you talk to me like that," Robb warns, the same low timbre from before coating his words again. It's a warning. "She can't have gone far," he continues, the reassurance back now. "We can find her -" He doesn't get any further, because Jon gives a wordless roar of anger at the reassurance, pulls his fist back to take a swing - and finds himself slammed back against a tree, Robb's forearm across his throat and his fist wrapped up in Robb's free hand.

                "Let me go," Jon spits out.

                "No. You and Arya might like to communicate by shouting and taking swings at each other but it's not how you do things with me, do you hear?"

                "Fuck off!" Jon shoves at the arm holding him, finds he cannot move it at all.

                "Calm down, I'll let you go," Robb says. Jon can see his face, just barely illuminated by the still bravely-flickering torch. It's dark with anger.

                "You don't get to tell me what to do!" Jon roars at him. "I am not going to bow down to you, Lord or King or whatever title you take these days. I am so beyond that now, Robb, I am so much more than the boy who stuck to you all our childhood because you were everything and I was nothing! I was Lord Commander, I am the monster even the Wildling's feared, I -"

  
He's silenced by Robb headbutting him so hard sparks burst behind his eyes. He'd expected a punch.

                "Listen to me," Robb hisses. "Listen! If she has left Winterfell, surely she had a reason? Surely there was a point? What were you talking about, before you went to bed?"

                "Bran," Jon answers, still dizzy enough to be off his guard. His tongue hurts, he can taste the copper tang of his own blood. "How he'd gone beyond the wall - what Rickon told us."

                "She won't have gone looking for him, surely? No, she'd have more sense than to think she could find him. So - should we, perhaps, go and count the horses? Check on Nymeria? If she hasn't taken a horse, or Nymeria, we know she can't have gone far. Does that sound like a good idea?" Jon looks up at Robb hulking over him in the darkness, the torch having finally been smothered by the snow. He can make out enough of his features to see calm reason - and eyes hotter than molten coal.

  
His knees just give from under him. If Robb's arms hadn't gone round him, he'd have fallen. His head buries itself against Robb's strong shoulder and his hands scrabble to grip at the leather of Robb's jerkin.

                "She's gone," he says again, utter defeat in his voice. "She's gone."

 


	28. Arya XIV

The call reaches her even in her sleep.

  
She'd been Nymeria, wandering the Wolfwood to hunt, Ghost by her side. And she'd felt it in her mind more than she'd heard it, some long-awaited call that once it came, she knew she'd been waiting for.

  
She got up and dressed herself properly this time, taking Needle as a matter of course. Her hand had hovered over the blade a moment, while the white helm of Longclaw glimmered in the light of the dying fire. Something in her mind said no. She was meant to do this alone, whatever it was. She was meant to go alone.

  
She left Jon still sleeping, got her horse from the stable and rode out of the gates. A guard called after her as she cantered past, but she did not stop, and none seemed to dare pursue her. The road to the East was deserted under the weak light of the waxing moon, but even so she lit no torches and got off the road as soon as the surrounding rocks offered sufficient cover in the dark.

  
It was almost dawn when she saw the camp ahead. The same strange feeling that urged her onwards told her that this was not her destination and that there was no need to stop. Closer to them, she recognised the Manderly banners, and her lips curved in triumph. This close to the castle, the only place they could be heading was to Winterfell.

  
She was on the road five days in the end, riding late into the night and sleeping as little as she could get away with. She hunted winter rabbit, setting snares a long-dead man had taught her. She stayed close enough to the road to use it as her guide - and to watch it. What she saw was Smallfolk. Some had carts, some carried bundles on their backs. Some had a horse on which perched a woman, often with a baby strapped to her front.

  
She'd been born in the spring, she had never seen a winter. But her father had told of Wintertown, the mass camp that was erected each winter outside Winterfell's boundaries, using the existing buildings as the centre. Smallfolk with nothing, merchants of means, traders, furriers, smiths, apprentices - they all came to form Wintertown and scrape whatever living they could out of the bare landscape. All her life, it had been barely populated. Now it looked like she would see it full.

  
On the fourth day, she sees nobody. Some instinct drives her off from the road, up into the mountains. She's heading west now, north-west, up towards the regions of the mountain clans. It's high up in the rocky passes during a halt for food when she hears the horse coming down towards her, five days after she left Winterfell behind her. The pull of Jon under her skin is the prevailing sense now, when previously it's been this desperate call to travel to this place. She does not hide herself, attempt to extinguish her fire or rise to her feet. Her little camp is off the pass itself, up in the rocks, hidden from the road. The only move she makes is to unsheath Needle and lay it across her knees. Below her, on the pass, the horse stops, she hears the thump of someone dismounting, the sound of feet on loose rock as someone begins to climb towards her.

  
Somehow she'd always known. The call had been so familiar, so known - it had come from someone she had once known well. She doesn't even need to look up when the footsteps stop.

                "Jaqen Hagar," she intones carefully, determined that her voice will stay level.

                "Lovely girl. A man has a thirst, after such a climb." When he invites himself to sit, pulls out a flask, she allows herself to look up. He looks the same as he had the day she'd left him in the Hall of Faces, naked as his nameday and still sweating from their love-making. She isn't sure which she would have preferred - the same, or some other face.

                "What are you doing here?" she asks, offering him some rabbit she's cooked over her little fire. It's still warm, steam curling up into the frigid night air.

                "A man was called, and so he came."

                "Did your God send you?"

                "Yes, just as he sent you, Arya Stark." His blue eyes burn into her, and she meets his gaze just as she always did.

                "Are you here to help us defeat the Army of the Dead?" She doesn't bother to explain any further to him. He'll know. He always knew those things.

                "A man is here to fight, whatever good he may be."

                "I seem to remember we parted on bad terms, your God and I," she says lightly. "Why did he want me in some frozen hellhole when you could have just come to Winterfell?"

                "Because you need something from me." She nearly starts at that. It's the first time she's ever heard him speak normally.

                "I don't need anything -"

                "You need a man to heal the wounds a girl gave a girl," he interrupts. Without her wanting it to, her hand flies to her belly, over the scars the Waif left her the night she died.

                "They're fine," Arya says dismissively. "Even if you did have some potion or poison to rid me of the scars, I wouldn't take it. I am no conceited girl to give a damn about such things as scars."

                "A man does not mean your scars," Jaqen counters. "A man means the wounds within." Arya frowns at that.    

                "What do you -"

                "When did a lovely girl last flower?"

  
She nearly chokes at that. She hasn't and will never forget the panic she felt when a moon passed without her bleeding after she'd left the House of Black and White, the lingering fear that she had conceived Jaqen's child had hung about her for months. As time had passed without her showing signs, she had begun to relax. When her belly stayed flat and her blood did not return, she had come to realise that perhaps the blade the Waif had carried had done some irreparable harm to her. She'd never wanted children anyway and she had not mourned her lack of moonsblood. Its absence had made it easier to travel, it had been one less thing to worry about. Now she was sat with Jaqen on some mountain pass, called by a God - apparently - so he could heal her.

  
The situation is so absurd she laughs out loud, the sound thrown back at them by the echoes.

                "I don't need healing," she says bluntly. "I was never going to be a mother, bearing heirs and spares until one of them killed me in childbed. I do not mourn it now the chance has passed by. And if you think I believe for even a second that that's why we're both sitting in this Godsforsaken place, you've clearly gone insane. If it was your God - or any God, for that matter - that called us both here, it was for more important reasons than my ability or lack thereof to bear children."

                "You still do not believe, do you?"

                "Not in Gods," she says shortly.

                "Then what does Arya Stark believe in, if not the Gods?"

                "Who says I believe in anything?" she shoots back.

                "Everyone believes in something. Whether a God, or an emotion, or a code to live by - all believe something."

                "I believe in a man named Jon Snow," she says shortly. "I believe that he loves me - and I left him behind to come here, without even saying goodbye. I'm dangerous enough as it is, Jaqen, believe me when I say you do not want to find out what being away from him makes me. If you know anything about what we're both doing here, I'd spit it out."

                "A man followed the call," Jaqen says, dropping his eyes from hers.

  
He's never done that. He's always stared. Stared into her eyes for so long and so intensely that sometimes, she still dreams of that piercing gaze. She's up and round the fire in a flash, her fingers hooking under his chin and forcing his face up to her own.

                "You just lied to me," she says, oddly triumphant. "You do know why we're here!" When he says nothing, she brings Needle up to rest against his throat. "Tell me," she says, her tone a command instead of a request. "I'm not the girl who left your House, Jaqen, I've done a few things since then. I'm no longer content to let you pick and choose what you tell me and when." He smiles up at her, stands, uses height to close in on her. She tightens her grip on Needle, presses it a little harder against his throat as she stares up at him. "And don't get any ideas that we're picking up where we left off," she adds.

                "A man did not think it. A man knows a girl is no longer free. But look around you, Arya Stark - where are we?"

                "The mountains," she answers automatically. "North west from here, we'd come up to the Bay of Ice. North, we'd come out of the mountains somewhere in the Gift. East, we'd come up near Deepwood Motte. And south, we'd come out on the road back to Winterfell. Why?"

                "Why would we be called somewhere so remote?”

                "How the bloody hell should I know?" she snaps, irritated now. "If you've nothing to say to me that makes sense, I'm going back to Winterfell."

                "And yet something in these mountains called us both here."

                "Unless it's a weapon to help us win this war, I don't care -"

                "You are the weapon," he says calmly. "The Gods chose you."

  
Shock keeps her silence for only a moment - fear keeps her speechless for much longer.

                "The Princess of Death," Jaqen says calmly, staring down at her. "It is who you were always meant to be, Arya Stark. All your life, it's been calling to you, has it not? The swords, the bows -" and how can he know that, he has never, ever seen her fire a bow and arrow - "the girl who connected the Priests who brought your brother's back to life? Did you never wonder?" And Sansa had said something like that, Sansa had said it was her pulling them all together.

                "I am not some - some mystic," she says, furiously but uncertainly. "I make my own destiny, I always have, since they cut my father's head off -"

                "No," Jaqen interrupts. "A girl has been called by fate since she was just a frightened child on the road North, talking to a murderer in a cage. She found the murderer and so escaped Harrenhal, she met the Red Priest who met the dog she was taken up by. She was given a coin to learn to kill and she was called to leave those lessons."

                "I made those choices!"

                "Because they were meant to be made."

                "Don't you dare take everything I've done away from me by claiming it's _fate_ ," she hisses, incensed that he'd even try. "I make my own decisions, some - some demons do not get to name me and take away everything I am because I'm meant to be some _Princess of Death_. I will fight this war because it threatens me, threatens my world, threatens the man I love and the family I thought I'd never see again; I will not fight it because I am fated to do so." She whirls away from Jaqen - and comes face to face with the fire, bigger than it should be, far bigger - and something in it catches her eye. Jaqen has moved up behind her, close enough for her to feel him there, almost but not quite touching her.

                "Look at it, and tell me what you see," his voice intones.              

                "I don't want to," she answers, closing her eyes and turning her head because she can't bear it.

                "This is a gift from the Many-Faced God, Arya Stark. Many men would kill to be in your shoes. Look at it - and learn from it."

                "If it's my future, I don't want to see it," she answers.

                "Look at it," Jaqen urges again, pushing her head to the front gently. "Just look."

  
She takes a deep breath. She opens her eyes. She stares, and sees, and watches as it plays out in the flames. When it's over, she sinks to her knees and weeps for it.

  
She fancies that she'd break apart if it wasn't for Jaqen's hand on her shoulder. She takes a deep breath, hates how shaky and uneven her voice is when she speaks.

                "Give it to me," she says, holding out her hand. Still behind her, he hands over a vial. "This will fix it?" she asks, flatly.

                "Yes," he confirms.

                "And he'll never -"

                "Not unless you choose to tell him." She drinks it down. The pain explodes white-hot and immediate behind her eyes.

 

Even as the ground rushes up towards her, she keeps eye contact with the demon from the Wolfwood, sees the cowled head bow to her in silent salute as she takes a step forward towards fulfilling the Godsdamned future they had shown her that night.

 

She has to pray it works. She has to pray Jon never finds out. She has to pray she can survive it when the sword falls.


End file.
